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The Mediterranean Sea, between Africa and Europe The Atlantic Ocean around the plate boundaries (text is in Finnish). The African and European mainlands are non-contiguous, and the delineation between these continents is thus merely a question of which islands are to be associated with which continent.
Afro-Eurasia (also Afroeurasia and Eurafrasia) is a landmass comprising the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The terms are compound words of the names of its constituent parts. Afro-Eurasia has also been called the " Old World ", in contrast to the " New World " referring to the Americas .
This is a list of countries with territory that straddles more than one continent, known as transcontinental states or intercontinental states. [1]Contiguous transcontinental countries are states that have one continuous or immediately-adjacent piece of territory that spans a continental boundary, most commonly the line that separates Asia and Europe.
The Strait of Gibraltar [1] is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Europe from Africa. The two continents are separated by 7.7 nautical miles (14.2 kilometers, 8.9 miles) at its narrowest point. [2] Ferries cross between the two continents every day in as little as 35 minutes.
The concepts of Europe and Asia as distinct continents date back to antiquity, but their borders have historically been subject to change. For example, to the ancient Greeks, Asia originally included Africa but they classified Europe [5] as separate land.
The Bosporus connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and forms one of the continental boundaries between Asia and Europe. It also divides Turkey by separating Asia Minor from Thrace. It is the world's narrowest strait used for international navigation.
Europe shares the landmass of Eurasia with Asia, and of Afro-Eurasia with both Africa and Asia. [ 9 ] [ 10 ] Europe is commonly considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed of the Ural Mountains , the Ural River , the Caspian Sea , the Greater Caucasus , the Black Sea , and the waterway of the Bosporus Strait .
Italy is separated from the Balkans by the Adriatic Sea, and from Iberia by the Mediterranean Sea, which also separates Europe from Africa. Eastward, mainland Europe widens much like the mouth of a funnel, until the boundary with Asia is reached at the Ural Mountains and Ural River, the Caspian Sea, and the Caucasus Mountains.