A thousand-mile journey to the edge of Europe

Silvaire wrote:

this area is not really ‘the edge of Europe’.

Slovakia is indeed very far from the edge of Europe

UK is edge of Europe :)

Really? Portugal, Ireland, Crete. Maybe Iceland?

Lots of people use the term “Europe” to mean either the EU, or (particularly Brits) continental Europe. It gets confusing and slightly annoying.

Quite right Turkey is the edge of Europe in one direction and Russia going in another direction.Then on what continent is Greenland?

The usage has changed over the years. When I came to the UK (from CZ) in 1969, mainland was called “the continent” which is probably clearer but no more geologically accurate, because the UK is a part of the mainland continental mass (S UK being obviously geologically identical to N France in so many places).

Russia has often been called Europe but only west of the Urals.

Calling the mainland “Europe” is obviously wrong, but has come in over the past 20-30 years or so.

gallois wrote:

Then on what continent is Greenland?

Europe of course… to my eyes at least it looks much closer to the European mainland than say… the UofK

The definition of a continent should be simple, a large landmass surrounded by water, but it soon gets complicated.

• Should it be on its own tectonic plate? In this case Europe is part of Asia, but India and the Arabian Peninsula become continents.
• What about unattached fragments like Iceland or Madagascar?
• Why is Greenland a large island when similar-sized Australia is a small continent?

There is a human effect that alters the definition. Europe is tiny on a global scale (~2%), but was the centre of progress and expansionism for an extended period. Also, ‘continent’ is used synonymously with ‘mainland’ in at least the UK, Corsica, Australia, US.

Personally, I would put a geographical Europe as west of the Ural mountains and north of Caucasian mountains. Culturally, though, I don’t think this has been the case since the Soviet Union, and I would re-draw this on the lines of Russian influence, e.g. Georgia and Ukraine in, Belarus out.

Why is Greenland a large island when similar-sized Australia is a small continent?

I asked myself this too, for obvious reasons. It’s not that small, though 🤣

terbang wrote:

I asked myself this too, for obvious reasons. It’s not that small, though

Actually, Australia the continent is more than four times the size of Greenland the island. You have to draw the line somewhere… Also, AFAIU, there is unbroken continental shelf between Greenland and Canada.