Why Europe is considered its own continent when it doesn’t really fit the definition of one?
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The term “Europe” goes back to the Greeks, who conventionally divided the world into Europe, Asia and Libya (Africa). This division was picked up by the Romans. However the Green and Roman worlds were more centred around the Mediterranean rather than making much of this division.
It became more important in the Middle Ages, as Europe (particularly Western Europe) developed an identity as the home of Christianity. North Africa, was now ruled by Muslims, and by the end of the Middle Ages so were the Levant and (what’s now) Turkey. Russia had its familiar ambivalent position. This political-religious division also helped push the economic balance of Europe to the North and West, and ultimately over the Atlantic. At the most extreme, Christians in Europe could imagine themselves cut off by Muslims to the South and East.
What was primarily a geographic expression thus became a cultural-religious-political one. And also a racial one, particularly as colonialism picked up pace.
We’ve inherited this use of the term “Europe”. One that’s based less on geography – “Europe” is much less clearly distinct from “Asia” than Eurasia from Africa or North and South America – and more on history and culture. (Which, of course, means that the borders of “Europe” and “Asia” are prone to being changed in a way that’s not so common with other continents.)
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