Why is Europe considered a continent?

[King Tryptamine]

Seriously though why are Europe and Asia considered as separate continents? They both lie on the same tectonic plate and form one large continuous land mass. I often hear the arguments that they're separated by the Caucasus mountains but my counter argument for this would be if we were going by those standards than wouldn't the land between the Andes mountain range be two different continents is well? Thereby splitting South America in two.

Another argument I hear is that they're separated by the Ural river. IMO this body of water is no where near long enough to divide the huge landmasses or thick enough to be considered a large expanse of water that separates the landmasses as with something like the Mediterranean sea parting Africa from Eurasia. For real why is this idea still taught in public schools!?

 

[Kumarajiva]

Cultural biases against mongols

 

[dragonrider]

I don't think it realy is considered a continent. It's a subcontinent, like india.

 

[null24]

I was taught in public school (U.S.) that it is the Eurasian continent.

 

[BundleflowerPower]

I’ve been thinking about this lately as well. In school I was taught that Europe and Asia were two separate continents, although perhaps they teach something different now.

 

[remyman612]

I think it's because we ('the hoomans' ) like to compartmentalize stuff so it's easier to talk about them. Geographically speaking, there's a dozen or more continental plates (not accounting for the so called 'microplates') which don't correspond to the land masses we've settled on.

North- and South America are also linked by a sliver of land and yet we tend to divide them into two separate continents. Which might not adhere to any straightforward definition (like 'a continent is a bunch of earth, elevated above sealevel, seperated from other continents by a bunch of water') but it serves its linguistic purpose.

It's been a while since I was part of the education system (and oh boy it shows) but I do think that, linguistic definitions notwithstanding, kids still know that one can travel from Europe to Asia and back by land .

 

[VibeSurfer]

It's arbitrary KT! Just like how Columbus discovered the Americas first even though he literally didn't.

 

[soulfood]

I believe this decision was made in order for us to unanimously agree as a species that Asian food is the best