Where would you draw the Europe-Asia border?

[Mingle]

There is a lot of debate of what Europe's borders constitutes, so I thought I'd start a thread on it.

Europe and Asia share two borders that are often disputed. These two borders are on the Caucasus region and the Urals region. The Caucasus Mountains and Ural Mountains/Ural River are used as geographic markers to divide Europe and Asia. This means that geographically speaking, a tiny bit of Azerbaijan and Georgia (if you include Abkhazia) are part of Europe whereas 0% of Armenia is part of Europe. It also means that a significant portion of Kazakhstan is part of Europe. All of Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Mordovia, and other Volga regions are 100% geographically part of Europe. All of Ciscaucasia (Chechnya, Dagestan, Circassia, etc) are also 100% geographically part of Europe.

So where would you draw the line between Europe and Asia?

Here is how I would do it:

Caucasus

• Border between Asia and Europe would be along the Volga and Don rivers. Everything south of Volga-Don is Asia (Caucasus) and everything north of it is Europe. This means that Chechnya, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Circassia, Dagestan, etc. are all 100% geographically part of Asia now.

Urals

• Historically, the Volga region was not considered part of Europe, and even today it still has Tatarstan, etc. so I decided to draw a line that excludes it from Europe. It was hard to draw a line based on rivers. So I drew a line based on the 40th meridian east. That way, Moscow is part of European Russia. This line cuts through Yaroslavl, Vologda, and Vladimir.

• I am not too sure about this border by the way and might change my mind since it's very hard to draw the line between Europe and Asia in that region.



Here is another division I am pondering based on a combination of the 40th meridian east and some rivers:



How would you draw the border between Europe and Asia?

[Jana]

Do you include Kuban region in Europe or Asia in your division ?

[Peterski]

Eastern border along the Ural, as that is the main natural border:

https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...cept-of-Europe



And then either Greater Caucasus or Lesser Caucasus, but countries such as Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are in many ways intermediate between Europe and Asia.

I don't think these countries are any less European than Turkey.

[Mingle]

Do you include Kuban region in Europe or Asia in your division ?

Asia.

[Mingle]

Eastern border along the Ural, as that is the main natural border:

https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...cept-of-Europe



And then either Greater Caucasus or Lesser Caucasus, but countries such as Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are in many ways intermediate between Europe and Asia.

I don't think these countries are any less European than Turkey.

Turkey isn't European so being less European than Turkey doesn't mean anything.

[Jana]

Well I consider Caucasus Eurasian (but that's more culturaly for country like Georgia, geographically I guess it's fine being placed as part of west Asia)

[Mingle]

Well I consider Caucasus Eurasian (but that's more culturaly for country like Georgia, geographically I guess it's fine being placed as part of west Asia)

Would you change the Europe-Asia border or is it fine the way it is?

[Jana]

Would you change the Europe-Asia border or is it fine the way it is?

Nah I agree with your division

[Mingle]

Nah I agree with your division

The first pic or the second one?

[Peterski]

Historically, the Volga region was not considered part of Europe

Ptolemy mentioned the Hippici Mountains and placed them to the west of Upper-Middle Volga. It looks like those mountains were the border of Europe in his opinion. The problem is, such mountains do not exist in reality (there are no any mountains between the Don River - Tanais - and the Volga River - Rha):

http://www.jassa.org/?p=8947

Map: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...a_Asiatica.jpg



So according to Ptolemy, the eastern border of Europe were some non-existent mountains west of the Volga. Real mountains are Ural Mountains, but they are to the east - not west - of the Volga River.