Eurasia: position, history, structure and relief

Eurasia is the largest continent: about 54 million km², a little more than a third of all land (about 36 %). It consists of Europe (about 10 million km²) and Asia (about 44 million km²), with the border drawn along the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea and straits. It lies almost entirely in the Northern Hemisphere; in the west the Strait of Gibraltar separates it from Africa and in the east the Bering Strait from North America. Its extreme points are Cape Chelyuskin in the north (about 78° N), Cape Piai in the south (about 1° N), Cape Roca in the west (about 9° W) and Cape Dezhnev in the east (about 170° W). It has the highest peak, Everest (8 848 m; officially measured as 8 848.86 m in 2020), the largest lake, the Caspian, the deepest lake, Baikal, and all 14 “eight-thousander” peaks. Its coast is indented with many peninsulas and islands. Eurasia is the cradle of the oldest civilisations: it appears on the maps of Eratosthenes and Ptolemy. Muhammad al-Khwarizmi (9th century) with other scholars compiled a world map and wrote “Kitab surat al-ard”. Abu Rayhan Beruni (973–1048) wrote “India” and described laws about rivers and rock. Zahiriddin Babur described the nature and people of Central Asia and India in the “Baburnama”.