Eurasia

• Eurasia is the largest continent in the world. It consists of two parts of the world Europe and Asia and occupies 1/3 of the dry land. The total area of the continent is 54.4 million sq km. The average height over the sea level is 830 m.

• There are four extreme points in Eurasia. They are:

• North – cape Chelyuskin;

• South – cape Piai;

• East – cape Dezhnev;

• West – cape Da Roca.

• Eurasia is washed by all the oceans and has the largest number of the washing seas.

• The coastlines of the continent are broken especially the western part, its length without islands is 100 thousand km. There are some bays and many peninsulas.

• Eurasia has many unique objects. Among them there is the highest point of the world Chomolungma (Everest) which is 8 848 m. high.

The deepest place in the world the Dead Sea (400m below sea level) is also here.

The coldest place in the world is Oimyakon and the hottest place is the Mesopotamian Lowland.

• The wettest place in the world is the basin of the Brahmaputra River and the driest place is Arabian Peninsula.

• There are two forms of relief in Eurasia: plains and mountains.

• Eurasia has many mountains of different age. The mountains of young age are the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Apennines, the Carpathians, the Caucasus, the Plateau of Iran, the Hindu-Kush, the Pamir, the Himalayas, the Tibet, the Kunlun-Shan.

• Old mountains of Eurasia are the Urals, the Scandinavian Mountains, the Altai, the Tien-Shan.

• There are also some active volcanoes in the continent. The highest of them is Klyuchevskaya (4 750 m). The others are Krakatau, Fujiyama, Vesuvius and Etna.

Climate in Eurasia is very different, because the continent is very large and occupies all the climatic belts of the northern hemisphere. Winter is very cold in the north and hot in the south. The amount of rainfalls changes from 50 mm a year in central Asia to 5 000 mm a year at the foot of Himalayas.

• Many large rivers are situated in Eurasia. They have their sources in the mountains and flow into the four oceans. The largest rivers of Russia flow into the Arctic Ocean. Almost all rivers in foreign Europe flow into the Atlantic Ocean. They rise in the mountains. The rivers of Eastern Asia empty their waters into the seas of the Pacific Ocean. They rise in the high mountains. There are some lakes in Eurasia.

• Eurasia is the most populated continent. 4 billion 530 million people live here (730 mln – Europe; 3 800 mln - Asia).

The Biggest Countries of EurasiaCountry Area (th sq km)

Russia 17075.1China 9598India 3300Kazakhstan 2717.3Saudi Arabia 2150.6Indonesia 2027Iran 1650Mongolia 1565Pakistan 804Turkey 780.6

The Smallest Countries of EurasiaCountry Area (sq km)

Vatican 0.4Monaco 1.95

San Marino 61

Liechtenstein 157.1

Andorra 468.2

Malta 316.6

Singapore 639

Bahrain 690

The Most Densely Populated Countries of Eurasia

Country Population (mln people)

China 1482.3India 1004.2

Indonesia 198.4Russia 146.5

Pakistan 130.5Bangladesh 130.1

Japan 126,2Germany 81.8Vietnam 76.2

Philippines 70.4

• People of three races live in Eurasia: europeoid, mongoloid and equatorial. The most numerous is the europeoid race. People of this race live in Europe, India and South-Western Asia. They are divided into two groups: southern and northern. People of mongoloid race live in Central and Eastern Asia. A small amount of black people lives on the island of Sri-Lanka and on the southern coast of Hindustan.