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Do not fill this in! ====Modern definitions==== {{further|Regions of Europe|Continental Europe}} [[File:Herman Moll A New Map of Europe According to the Newest Observations 1721.JPG|thumb|270px|''A New Map of Europe According to the Newest Observations'' (1721) by Hermann Moll draws the eastern boundary of Europe along the Don River flowing south-west and the Tobol, Irtysh and Ob rivers flowing north.]] [[File:1916 political map of Europe.jpg|thumb|270px|right|1916 political map of Europe showing most of Moll's waterways replaced by von Strahlenberg's Ural Mountains and Freshfield's Caucasus crest, land features of a type that normally defines a subcontinent]] The question of defining a precise eastern boundary of Europe arises in the Early Modern period, as the eastern extension of [[Tsardom of Russia|Muscovy]] began to include [[North Asia]]. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the 18th century, the traditional division of the landmass of [[Eurasia]] into two continents, Europe and Asia, followed Ptolemy, with the boundary following the [[Turkish Straits]], the [[Black Sea]], the [[Kerch Strait]], the [[Sea of Azov]] and the [[Don River (Russia)|Don]] (ancient [[Tanais]]). But maps produced during the 16th to 18th centuries tended to differ in how to continue the boundary beyond the Don bend at [[Kalach-na-Donu]] (where it is closest to the Volga, now joined with it by the [[Volga–Don Canal]]), into territory not described in any detail by the ancient geographers. Around 1715, [[Herman Moll]] produced a map showing the northern part of the [[Ob River]] and the [[Irtysh River]], a major tributary of the Ob, as components of a series of partly-joined waterways taking the boundary between Europe and Asia from the Turkish Straits, and the Don River all the way to the Arctic Ocean. In 1721, he produced a more up to date map that was easier to read. However, his proposal to adhere to major rivers as the line of demarcation was never taken up by other geographers who were beginning to move away from the idea of water boundaries as the only legitimate divides between Europe and Asia. Four years later, in 1725, [[Philip Johan von Strahlenberg]] was the first to depart from the classical Don boundary. He drew a new line along the [[Volga River|Volga]], following the Volga north until the [[Samara Bend]], along [[Obshchy Syrt]] (the [[drainage divide]] between the Volga and [[Ural River]]s), then north and east along the latter waterway to its source in the [[Ural Mountains]]. At this point he proposed that mountain ranges could be included as boundaries between continents as alternatives to nearby waterways. Accordingly, he drew the new boundary north along [[Ural Mountains]] rather than the nearby and parallel running Ob and Irtysh rivers.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Das Nord-und Ostliche Theil von Europa und Asia|author=Philipp Johann von Strahlenberg|year=1730|language=de|page=106}}</ref> This was endorsed by the Russian Empire and introduced the convention that would eventually become commonly accepted. However, this did not come without criticism. [[Voltaire]], writing in 1760 about [[Peter the Great]]'s efforts to make Russia more European, ignored the whole boundary question with his claim that neither Russia, Scandinavia, northern Germany, nor Poland were fully part of Europe.<ref name="Pocock2002"/> Since then, many modern analytical geographers like [[Halford Mackinder]] have declared that they see little validity in the Ural Mountains as a boundary between continents.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jrVW9W9eiYMC&pg=PA8|title=Europe: A History|page=8|access-date=23 August 2010|isbn=978-0-19-820171-7|date=1996|last1=Davies|first1=Norman|publisher=Oxford University Press |archive-date=1 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801123242/https://books.google.com/books?id=jrVW9W9eiYMC&pg=PA8|url-status=live}}</ref> The mapmakers continued to differ on the boundary between the lower Don and Samara well into the 19th century. The [[:commons:Category:Atlas of Russian Empire. 1745 year|1745 atlas]] published by the [[Russian Academy of Sciences]] has the boundary follow the Don beyond Kalach as far as [[Serafimovich (town)|Serafimovich]] before cutting north towards [[Arkhangelsk]], while other 18th- to 19th-century mapmakers such as [[John Cary]] followed Strahlenberg's prescription. To the south, the [[Kuma–Manych Depression]] was identified {{Circa|1773}} by a German naturalist, [[Peter Simon Pallas]], as a valley that once connected the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea,<ref name="oren-icn.ru">{{cite web|url=http://oren-icn.ru/index.php/discussmenu/retrospectiva/685-eagraniza |title=Boundary of Europe and Asia along Urals |language=ru |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120108153922/http://oren-icn.ru/index.php/discussmenu/retrospectiva/685-eagraniza |archive-date=8 January 2012 }}</ref><ref>Peter Simon Pallas, ''Journey through various provinces of the Russian Empire'', vol. 3 (1773)</ref> and subsequently was proposed as a natural boundary between continents. By the mid-19th century, there were three main conventions, one following the Don, the [[Volga–Don Canal]] and the Volga, the other following the Kuma–Manych Depression to the Caspian and then the Ural River, and the third abandoning the Don altogether, following the [[Greater Caucasus watershed]] to the Caspian. The question was still treated as a "controversy" in geographical literature of the 1860s, with [[Douglas Freshfield]] advocating the Caucasus crest boundary as the "best possible", citing support from various "modern geographers".<ref>Douglas W. Freshfield, "[https://books.google.com/books?id=ips8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA71 Journey in the Caucasus] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801113249/https://books.google.com/books?id=ips8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA71 |date=2020-08-01 }}", ''Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society'', Volumes 13–14, 1869. Cited as de facto convention by Baron von Haxthausen, ''Transcaucasia'' (1854); review [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_SN0EAAAAQAAJ/page/n152 <!-- pg=140 --> Dublin University Magazine]</ref> In [[Russia]] and the [[Soviet Union]], the boundary along the Kuma–Manych Depression was the most commonly used as early as 1906.<ref>[http://dlib.rsl.ru/view.php?path=/rsl01004000000/rsl01004103000/rsl01004103489/rsl01004103489.pdf#?page=163 "Europe"]{{dead link|date=August 2016}}, ''[[Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary]]'', 1906</ref> In 1958, the Soviet Geographical Society formally recommended that the boundary between the Europe and Asia be drawn in textbooks from [[Baydaratskaya Bay]], on the [[Kara Sea]], along the eastern foot of Ural Mountains, then following the [[Ural River]] until the [[Mugodzhar Hills]], and then the [[Emba River]]; and Kuma–Manych Depression,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://velikijporog.narod.ru/st_evraz_gran.htm|title=Do we live in Europe or in Asia?|language=ru|access-date=30 July 2022|archive-date=18 February 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180218073322/http://velikijporog.narod.ru/st_evraz_gran.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> thus placing the Caucasus entirely in Asia and the Urals entirely in Europe.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.i-u.ru/biblio/archive/orlenok_fisicheskaja/06.aspx |title=Physical Geography |year=1998 |author=Orlenok V. |language=ru |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111016212930/http://www.i-u.ru/biblio/archive/orlenok_fisicheskaja/06.aspx |archive-date=16 October 2011 }}</ref> The ''[[Flora Europaea]]'' adopted a boundary along the [[Terek (river)|Terek]] and [[Kuban (river)|Kuban]] rivers, so southwards from the Kuma and the Manych, but still with the Caucasus entirely in Asia.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Tutin |first=T.G. |title=Flora Europaea, Volume 1: Lycopodiaceae to Platanaceae |last2=Heywood |first2=V.H. |last3=Burges |first3=N.A. |last4=Valentine |first4=D.H. |last5=Walters |first5=S.M. |last6=Webb |first6=D.A. |date=1964 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-06661-7 |location=Cambridge}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Tutin |first=Thomas Gaskell |title=Flora Europaea, Volume 1: Psilotaceae to Platanaceae |date=1993 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-41007-6 |edition=2nd |location=Cambridge New York Melbourne [etc.]}}</ref> However, most geographers in the Soviet Union favoured the boundary along the Caucasus crest,<ref>E.M. Moores, R.W. Fairbridge, ''Encyclopedia of European and Asian regional geology'', Springer, 1997, {{ISBN|978-0-412-74040-4}}, p. 34: "most Soviet geographers took the watershed of the Main Range of the Greater Caucasus as the boundary between Europe and Asia."</ref> and this became the common convention in the later 20th century, although the Kuma–Manych boundary remained in use in some 20th-century maps. Some view the separation of [[Eurasia]] into Asia and Europe as a residue of [[Eurocentrism]]: "In physical, cultural and historical diversity, [[China]] and [[India]] are comparable to the entire European landmass, not to a single European country. [...]."{{sfnp|Lewis|Wigen|1997|p=?}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. 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