*I'm Kento Bento*
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Asia is the largest and most populous continent in the world.
From the physical extremes....
to the cultural
It's a continent that has shown tremendous diversity from one end to the other.
But what exactly counts as Asia?
Where are the Asian borders?
In a previous video, I started defining the borders in a clockwise direction from East Asia
through the boundaries bordering Australia and Africa
ending on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
If you want to know where exactly the Asian borders lie in those regions
the link is in the description below.
In this video, we'll continue on in our journey to Europe.
Stick around to the end for more details on this Asian border series.
So let's start where we left off, between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
With Asia being so large and diverse, the continental division can often have more to do with
human geography than physical geography,
and there's no better example of this than the controversial Asia-Europe border.
Now, continents are large continuous, discrete masses of land, ideally separated by expanses of water.
So, we can see all of this is within Asia - Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey
actually, I'll get into Turkey in just a minute.
Keep your eye on this red border line as everything contained within will be considered part of Asia
and everything outside, belongs to a different continent.
Ok, but what about the island country of Cyprus?
Since most major islands, by convention, are associated with a continent
Cyprus is usually placed in Asia.
I say 'usually' because while Cyprus' proximity to the rest of Asia makes it Asian to many people
it is sociopolitically a European country.
Cyprus was admitted to the Council of Europe in 1961
and is politically a member of the European Union since 2004.
Sure, it's a little further away than the rest of the EU countries, but according to the EU's own requirements
Cultural and geographic definitions of Europe are intertwined & thus are "subject to political assessment"
Now, for the sake of this video and due to its physical geography
I'm still going to place Cyprus in Asia.
Keep in mind, as with much of the Asia-Europe border, this is not definitive
and can be open to interpretation.
Moving on to Turkey.
If we follow the 'continuous landmass', we can trace the Asian borders along the Aegean Sea,
the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmara up to, for now, the Turkish city of Istanbul.
We know Greece and Bulgaria are part of Europe so the continental division should be somewhere here
which would put at least most of Turkey in Asia.
As for these islands, it's a lot easier to place the divide along country lines
Most of these are Greek
but of course, just like for Indonesia, it's debatable.
If we take into account a combination of factors including mainland distance, island clusters
and just having more of continental consistency with other archipelagos,
you'll see that quite a few Greek islands can be claimed by Asia, including Chios, Samos and Rhodes.
This is where I'll draw the maritime border, which would technically make Greece a transcontinental country.
And speaking of transcontinental countries, back up here, the continental border is usually placed here
instead of at the Greek & Bulgarian borders, splitting Turkey into Asian Turkey and European Turkey.
This actually makes sense historically and geographically.
If we zoom up on Istanbul, you can see the narrow Bosphorus strait, an internationally significant waterway
already creating a clear, natural divide between the two sides.
This is unlike the man-made division of, say, the Suez canal.
Not only does all this make Turkey a transcontinental country
but it also makes the cities of Istanbul and Canakkale transcontinental cities.
As for whether Turkey as a whole should be considered Asian or European (if we had to choose one)
that's probably too complicated a topic to get into now
but I may do a video on it in the future if enough people are interested.
Now, this is where things get even more complicated.
Since there is no significant geographical separation between Asia and Europe,
from the point of the Black Sea onwards,
the border becomes largely an arbitrary, historical and cultural construct.
And this is a big part of why many people feel Asia and Europe
should never have been considered different continents to start with.
But, let's try to answer this anyway.
Where should the borders be?
If we go with the most long-standing, traditional border convention - I'm talking historically, throughout the ages
since the time of Strabo & Ptolemy till only recently, you have this route.
Continuing along the coast of the Black Sea, and through the Kerch Strait
you find the Sea of Azov (we're now in Russia).
You follow the Don River and Volga River to the Samara Bend,
move across the highland ridges of which I cannot pronounce
then finally follow the peaks or crest of the Ural Mountains
all the way to the Arctic Ocean.
Here, Russia is split into Asian Russia and European Russia.
Now, maybe you feel that the boundary should be defined more along large bodies of water,
such as the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, and since the Kuma-Manych Depression is a valley,
that once upon a time, connected the two into an even larger body of water,
perhaps we should instead have the border move through the Kuma-Manych Depression
along the Caspian coast, and from there the next best option might just be
following the Ural River up to the Ural Mountains, then once again reaching the Arctic Ocean.
This time both Russia and Kazakhstan are split up.
Ok, two choices so far, but we do have a third.
We see that the Ural Mountains divide is the only natural feature that isn't much disputed,
and for good reason, so in keeping with mountainous divides
maybe here the peaks of the Greater Caucasus Mountains is the way to go
instead of the Kuma-Manych Depression.
And you could also argue that just like the Urals, it's the most prominent natural feature in the region.
Now, from here, it's the familiar path along the Caspian coast and Ural River, to the Ural Mountains
I should mention though that some note the eastern foothills of the Ural Mountains
as the borderline instead of the peaks.
Right, this leaves us with three options to choose from - the classical, the water-centric and the mountainous.
Actually there's even more, but these are the main three.
For this video, I'm going to go with the one favoured by most modern-day geographers
and that's the last one, along the Greater Caucasus mountains.
You can see this puts Georgia and Azerbaijan physically in Asia,
with a few bits and pieces technically in Europe.
This can seem odd as the two countries, along with Armenia, are often considered more 'European'
by many people, for reasons historical and sociopolitical.
All three are in the Council of Europe, the EU's Eastern Partnership, and most importantly...
the Eurovision song contest.
Azerbaijan even won it in 2011!
So, you can see how some are adamant that the borders be drawn along country lines.
Of course this completely neglects the concept of a 'natural' continental boundary
which is important since, as we know from history, state borders can change over time,
but natural borders, well they stay relatively consistent.
Moving along to Kazahkstan, the provinces of Atyrau and West Kazakhstan extend on
both sides of the border making it clearly transcontinental.
But still, Kazakhstan is mostly associated with Asia due to the cultural and geographic similarities
to other Central Asian countries.
If we zoom up over here, to the Ural River Bridge in the city of Orenburg, Russia
you'll actually find that on one side of the river, it is labelled and marked 'Europe'
while on the other, it's 'Asia'.
Now, I'm not going to get into whether Russia is considered Asian or European
for reasons similar to Turkey, but it is clear that physically, there's a greater part of it lying in Asia.
So, let's continue the borders over in this North Asian region.
We'll move along the Arctic coast of Russia, which spans the Kara Sea, the Laptev Sea, the East Siberian Sea
There's also the Russian Arctic Islands of Komsomolets, October Revolution, Bolshevik, New Siberian
and many smaller ones.
This brings us to the final leg of our journey.
Here lies the Asia-North America border, where Siberia comes real close to meeting Alaska.
This actually isn't as straight-forward as you might think
and I've decided to cover this final portion, in a separate part 3 video.
I'll be connecting it back to where we started off in East Asia
so make sure you're subscribed to get that.
Now, on this channel we talk a lot about different countries
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And if you haven't already seen the first Asian borders video
well you can click on top to watch that, otherwise click the one below if you prefer something else.
I hope you enjoyed this topic & if you have any questions or thoughts about anything that I've mentioned
let us know down below.
Thanks for watching, hit that like button, and stay tuned for more-interesting 'Asiany' videos.