The Borders of Europe

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Avatar for Mictorrani
2 years ago
Topics: Geography, Europe

Where are the geographical borders around Europe? Is it possible to define the borderlines? Well, it is not as simple as one might wish.

Geographically, Europe is the area limited by the Arctic Sea in the north, The Mediterranean in the south, The Atlantic Ocean in the west - but the Eastern border is less clear. A bit vaguely, the Ural Mountains used to be considered as the Eastern border, or more specifically the Ural river or Emba river. Previously in history, the border was considered to be the river Don, or the Tanais river.

In reality it is unclear, whether the Ural area itself should be included in Europe or not. The Russians do include it, but Western Europeans usually do not.

In the Southeast the problem is obvious. From the Mediterranean to the east, the border follows the water through the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosporus, and into the Black Sea. Here comes the hardest part, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Sometimes it is drawn along the crest of the Caucasian mountains, sometimes along Kura river - and sometimes along one of the valleys north of the Caucasian mountains.

This leaves many unanswered questions. Russia is problematic, but is customarily counted to Europe, although the largest part of it lies in Asia. Cyprus, topographically, is a part of Asia Minor, but is almost always considered as Europe. Turkey, with only a very small part of its territory in Europe (the rest in Asia), is sometimes counted to Europe. When we come to the Caucasian countries (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan), confusion grows further.

Personally I think Caucasus is Asia, not Europe - as are the Urals and Turkey. (And I don't think Turkey should be admitted into the European Union, simply for the reason that it is no European country; not geographically, not culturally, and not historically.)

This confusion leaves room for considerable variation on an organisational level, where Europe can mean many things. Let's look at some.

The Council Of Europe

Some people define Europe by membership of the Council of Europe. (This is not the European Union, although membership in the Council of Europe is a prerequisite for membership in the European Union.)

The members of the Council of Europe are (in the order of their accession):

Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Republic of Ireland, Norway, Greece, Turkey, Iceland, Germany, Austria, Cyprus, Switzerland, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania , Slovenia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Andorra, Latvia, Albania, Moldova, Republic of Macedonia, Ukraine, Russia, Croatia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Monaco, Montenegro.

Are there countries of Europe which are NOT members? Yes, Belarus and the Vatican City. While - in my opinion - Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan are clearly questionable.

The European Union

The European Union consists of:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.

Candidates are:

Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey.

Considered by the Union as "other European countries":

Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Monaco, Norway, Russia, San Marino, Switzerland, Ukraine, Vatican City State and United Kingdom.

Not much to comment on, except the same reservation as before about Turkey and Caucasus.

The Union of European Football Associations

UEFA, The Union of European Football Associations, includes these members (apart from Europe proper):

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkey, who have themselves chosen to belong to UEFA rather than the Asian Football Confederation. Cyprus could chose to be seen as European, Asian or African.

So in the world of football, Europe includes Israel and Kazakhstan!

The European Broadcasting Union

Have you ever wondered why Israel and Morocco can participate in the Eurovision Song Contest? They cannot by any definition be said to belong to Europe.

The Eurovision Song Contest is arranged by EBU, and only members may participate. Fully active Members of EBU, The European Broadcasting Union, are from states which are Members of the Council of Europe, or those from states that fall within the European Broadcasting Area.

The European Broadcasting Area includes, besides Europe proper, Western Russia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East down to Northern Saudi Arabia; including all the countries around the Mediterranean. This does include, for instance, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, and Iraq!

So, EBU's Europe is quite large, and not in accordance with anyone else's!

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(Image by Mabel Amber/Pixabay, CC0/Public Domain.)

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Avatar for Mictorrani
2 years ago
Topics: Geography, Europe

Comments

From a purely Geophysical perspective,
"Europe" and "Asia" is all one giant landmass.
The only difference is purely politics and culture.
The only justification for a "European Union" and "Council of Europe"
is to alienate everyone else on the planet.
The term European then becomes just another global "Caste".
Anyone born outside that club is just an "other".
Which informs substantially about personalities who glorify "European".
Which also informs substantially about personalities who glorify "Asian".
All the rest of us who do not glorify 'geographical allegiance' are real people.

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2 years ago

You are right,of course. We think very similar in such things.

The continent is Eurasia, the division in Europe and Asia is abstract, and of course those implementing it has political/ideological reasons for doing so. From a European perspective, it is an extension of the old Greeks' concept of Greeks as real humans and all others as inferior others. Now it is Europeans as humans and others are inferior others. Unfortunately even those others are often duped into the same belief, so they too desire to be what they see as "European",they too want to belong to the "club of the chosen". In that perspective I see Turkey as the most clear example.

But this idea about one people's superiority is not exclusively European, it turns up almost everywhere, at least at some point in history.

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2 years ago

this idea about one people's superiority is not exclusively European, it turns up almost everywhere, at least at some point in history.

Indeed, a human malady that sometimes becomes epidemic.

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2 years ago

This human malady is less to do with the European/non-European divide. It is mainly national-related. In Europe, unfortunately, there are often nationalisms and feelings of superiority towards other european nations. It is also, unfortunately, everywhere in the world. Not only at the national level. Religion also plays a very big role. Many people see their own religion as the right one and all others as unbelievers, so worse. In extreme cases, they are even prepared to kill non-believers. This fanaticism also exists on a very banal level. There are people who are ready to beat up others just because they are supporters of another football team, even though the teams are from the same city. Unfortunately, many people are like that.

$ 0.01
2 years ago

The EU isn't Europe and as messy as the European Song festival where Israel joins and more countries which are not in Europe. Altogether it's messy and corrupt and it depends on where you live which country is Europe and Asia (and what is taught at school). Turkey not and Russia partly and to me it is.

That being said Nostradamus predicted the end of the EU so this article will be history soon.

🍀💖

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2 years ago

Let's hope it will be history soon. EU is a monster anyway; the whole idea is foolish.

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2 years ago

I don't know if it's just me but I've always thought these countries that their landmass falls in Asia are naturally to be part of Asia but for sentimental reasons, they don't want to belong there but Europe instead. Europe will get into trouble if they keep giving the licence to countries as this.

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2 years ago

Indeed. If there is a concept like Europe, there must be borders. The problem rests, I think,in the fact that the European continent not is a genuine continent, but just the western tip of the huge Eurasian continent.

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2 years ago

I'm not that knowledgeable in terms of studying borders and territories especially in Europe. Perhaps I'm familiar with Asia, but on the other continents, my mind is blurry. Howbeit, this is such an interesting piece you have shared as through this, I was able to know about Europe's nitty-gritty.

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2 years ago

I often watch football, especially the Champions League and European Cup and at that time I often knew the countries and clubs that were included in the tournament, from this presentation Turkey was often questioned because its territory was in East Asia or the border but was included in the tournament participating countries.

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2 years ago

In this list, I will only object to Turkey. I'm not just saying this in terms of being my country. For example, despite the fact that Cyprus still has a problem to be solved within itself and is in a geographical location that cannot be defined as a European country, it is accepted as a united Cyprus (whereas the north is still separate and despite the unification that did not happen because the north said yes to the unification in the UN referendum and the south said no). I find it interesting to exclude Turkey, some of which is in Europe. Or, let's look at it from a football perspective, my favorite team, Galatasaray, is a club on the European side of Istanbul today. Suppose you are included in the Asian Championship and play the final. Wouldn't the Asian Championship final on European soil be weird? We can think of this in the teams of other Asian countries. Just as the final of the UEFA organization in Asian soil is strange. In fact, Europe should clearly reveal this eastern border designation within itself. Thus, countries with European expectations (such as Turkey) can take more realistic steps in guiding themselves. Personally, I think that Turkey's full membership to Europe will never happen, because of its geographical location, it is considered important and given importance by European countries. For this reason, privileged partnership offers have been made recently instead of full membership, especially in Germany. I do not see the possibility of the administration in Turkey accepting such an offer to win an election again, because the people here are very conscious about European membership!

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2 years ago

Perhaps the whole idea of European continent is wrong, since, in fact, it is no continent. Neither is Asia. Eurasia, however, is really a continent.

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2 years ago

Very interesting, the definition of Europe is quite loosely based.

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2 years ago