Talk:Afro-Eurasia

Americeurafrasia
Excludes polar regions and Oceania — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.84.212.43 (talk) 03:31, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Americeurafrasia, which does include part of the polar regions of the northern hemisphere, isn't contiguous now but was until 11,000 years ago, when Beringia was submerged, and was a supercontinent by the definition "a continuous land mass including most of the world's continental landmasses"; even now-isolated parts such as the Falkland Islands and Sundaland (and other continental island were included, only Sahul (separated by Wallacea) and Zealandia were not. List of supercontinents does list Americeurafrasia. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:29, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

sem nexo eurasia norte do saara americas oceania tem mais vinculos dentre si que com o resto — Preceding unsigned comment added by 179.154.75.17 (talk) 21:54, 28 March 2018 (UTC)

Suez Canal
Since when Asia and Europe are separated by the Suez Canal? An obvious mistake... - 68.199.159.52 04:44, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The sentence you mention is confusing indeed:
 * It is typically subdivided into the continents of Africa and Eurasia – which is culturally, but not geographically, subdivided into Europe and Asia – separated by the Suez Canal.
 * The phrase between hyphens is an insertion, and what are separated by the Suez Canal are Africa and Eurasia. I'll rewrite it. - TAKASUGI Shinji 10:13, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Eufrasia?
I've heard Eufrasia somewhere. Is that a real name? Jigen III 17:19, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Of many Hispanic women? Yes.


 * Of a landmass? No. — Llywelyn II   00:52, 11 March 2015 (UTC)


 * What a bizarre response. No, Eufrasia is not a Latino name. Yes, it is one of many academic terms for this landmass. SuperTah (talk) 04:17, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Population
Stating the pupulation to be exactly 5,455,012,581 is incorrect. The total population varies every second on account of births and deaths. A more correct way would be to say "The population is close to 5.5 billion." Or omit the sentence all together, just keeping "[...] containing around 85% of the World population." Dj tricky 16:27, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Name: Source
I have added several citation needed tags, and we haven't got sources for the following terms yet: I'm afraid some of them were coined by Wikipedians. The following terms are known to have been used in academic books and journals: The problem is that the current title Africa-Eurasia has no reliable source now. It must be a geological term because historians prefer Afro-Eurasia. Can anyone provide a source? If nobody can find one, the article must be renamed to Afro-Eurasia. The World Island is the oldest term but it's not appropriate since it clearly excludes surrounding islands. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 04:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Africa-Eurasia
 * Asiafrica
 * Eufrasia
 * Eurasiafrica
 * Eurasica
 * Afrasia
 * Afro-Eurasia
 * Eurafrasia
 * World Island


 * Don't wait for an Africa-Eurasia source. Even if there is one, according to what you've just said, Afro-Eurasia is the more common term and should be the article title.  I also am behind removing any term you believe is original research.  If users would like to re-add previously unverified terms, they can add them simultaneously with sourcing.  Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  04:49, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your advice. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 05:08, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Requested move
The article should be renamed to Afro-Eurasia. As I have explained above, it's a common term among historians. We don't have a reliable source for Africa-Eurasia. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 05:08, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I've noticed the article was renamed a few minutes after my proposal. I don't delete the move tag now, for a further discussion. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 05:19, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I remove the move tag since nobody provides any other source. - TAKASUGI Shinji 01:05, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Afro-Eurasia is a racist word though. The word Afro mainly refers to a hairstyle typically associated with Africans. It doesn't mean Africa. My African friends hate people using this word. They prefer Africa-Eurasia instead. 2001:8003:9008:1301:1086:31F:A6C:F8E2 (talk) 16:34, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Spain hitting Africa?
I seem to recall from GCSE Geography that Spain (and, indeed, Portugal) is largely part of Africa anyway... The Gibraltar straits lie in Africa, not between Africa and Europe. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.107.183.201 (talk) 19:45, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

you musnt remember it well then! iberia is definitely seperate from africa. in the straight of gibraltar lies the plate boundary between the eurasian plate and the african plate. the straights ARE the boundary between europe and africa —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.206.27.163 (talk) 18:49, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Maps for continents - proposal
Currently a number of different styles of maps are used for continents (and for the poles), for example: I'd like to try and standardise maps across the following articles: Americas, North America, South America, Africa, Afro-Eurasia, Asia, Australasia, Eurasia, Europe and Oceania (and also, ideally, Arctic and Antarctica. My preference is for the orthographic projection currently used at Europe because:
 * Europe (current)
 * Asia (former)
 * South America (current)
 * It's an SVG instead of a PNG, so can be scaled easily.
 * New maps can be relatively created from existing SVGs (i.e. Europe's map - or the other SVG maps visible at File:Europe (orthographic projection).svg - can be recycled).
 * As an orthographic projection it allows the maps to be centred on the relevant continent or territory.

Assuming there's consensus for this, I'll post a request at Graphic Lab/Image workshop (unless, of course, anyone volunteers beforehand!) However, before doing that I do want to check that there is consensus for this at each article affected. Additionally, I'm posting this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography to increase the exposure - I'd rather find out if this is a stupid idea before I start requesting new images ;-)

Personally I think it would be good if the Arctic and Antarctic maps were consistent with the continent maps. I realise that the poles may have different requirements, however.

This proposal is quite a radical proposal, affecting many articles, and deals with areas I don't normally edit in. I'm therefore prepared to be slapped down if I'm stepping on toes!

Cheers, This flag once was redpropagandadeeds 10:38, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
 * For some maps, this won't work.  With Afro-Eurasia (and most likely with Asia itself) there is so much area spread out that the orthographic projection would not show everything and would show quite a bit of distortion.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  17:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I take your point about distortion, however Asia, Eurasia and - I think - Afro-Eurasia should fit on one map. File:Orthographic Projection of Asia.png shows all of Asia and Europe, with some room left to rotate to include all of Africa.
 * I am beginning to question the wisdom of this approach, though - it makes sense when it's showing the location of an area relative to other areas, but when the visible hemisphere is covered with the area in question its less useful - effectively only the Arabian peninsula and India are clearly identifiable. It might be best to treat Afro-Eurasia, Americas and Eurasia separately, i.e. retain the current maps (or, better yet, convert the current maps to SVGs...!)
 * Cheers, and thanks for pointing this out to me! I knew it wouldn't be straightforward, but I had hoped I'd thought of stuff like this ;-) This flag once was redpropagandadeeds 18:10, 11 June 2009 (UTC)


 * only anciet north africa is related with part of eurasian/laurasic world in the africa (center-southeast africa is a sub-eurasic world; madagascar was part of southeast asia in the etnic-dna, because paris destroyed the malgaxian people original anciet southern mongoloids via/with slaves of eastern coast of africa..)! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.114.193.206 (talk) 02:51, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Non-inclusion
The map includes Madagascar; that shouldn't be colored in. --Golbez July 9, 2005 08:34 (UTC)
 * so it has japan too, what's your point. madagascar is apart of africa like japan is of asia. - 67.118.132.232 23:08, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Japan shouldn't be colored in either, or Britain. Note that Sumatra and Borneo aren't colored in. Yes, they are part of their continents, but they are not part of the Africa-Eurasia landmass. If you're going to call this the "world island" then it should be only one island. --Golbez 00:01, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * Great Britain actually has to be colored in, since Gibraltar is part of the coast --anonymous 16:27, July 12, 2011 (UTC)


 * Nor taiwan? --ThrashedParanoid 20:48, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Nor taiwan. --Tothebarricades 10:57, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Right on. If the map is to stay put, then the adjoining text needs to be much clearer about the nearby islands being associated with but (quite obviously) not physically part of this supercontinent. //Big Adamsky 02:33, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The maps are fine. The text needs to clearly distinguish between a continental mainland and associated lands: pro forma, a continent is a large continuous landmass, but conventional notions regarding continents (e.g., politically) typically embrace the mainland and adjacent islands and territories.  And don't let water fool you: remember that many of these lands are associated geophysically through tectonic plates.  Similarly, consult any dictionary (e.g., Oxford) for, say, Japan and you'll get something like this (emphasis added):
 * a country in eastern Asia, occupying a festoon of islands in the Pacific roughly parallel with the east coast of the Asiatic mainland ...
 * though "festoon" is hardly a commonplace word. :) I hope this helps.  E Pluribus Anthony 07:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Islands
The Islands shouldn't be colour green if this article is specific to the single land mass. - Ajuk 21:59, 05 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It depends on definition. Continent may or may not include surrounding islands. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 04:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It doesn't depend on the definition of "continent". Continent does include the surrounding islands. — Llywelyn II   01:37, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * First you claim it doesn't depend on the definition of a continent, then continue by stating a part of one of the definitions? 176.72.77.103 (talk) 21:00, 30 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I was going to start a new section, but saw this topic already raised a long time ago. This acticle is talking about the landmass Afro-Eurasia which, as I understand it, doesn't include islands. Whereas "continent" may or may not include islands. From the article: "The term (Afro-Eurasia) excludes non-mainland islands and archipelagos". Yet immediately to the right there is a map showing Afro-Eurasia with the nearby islands colored green as if to include them. Again, it is my understanding that Afro-Eurasia is the name of  a landmass composed of the mainland portions of the continents Africa and Eurasia(Europe and Asia) and the term "landmass" in general includes only the mainland, no associated islands. It is when speaking of continent where, depending on definition, we may or may not include surrounding islands. See List of islands by area. This list tends to support my interpretation of "landmass" as does the article for landmass and its definition, "A landmass is a large continuous area of land."


 * Long story short, I believe the map to be inconsistant with the text in the article. Racerx11 (talk) 05:02, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * +1 I was about to say the same thing. If I had the graphical skills, I'd fix the image.  Grover cleveland (talk) 00:19, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Iceland
It doesn't make sense to include Iceland, since it is closer the the North American island of Greenland. - Flybyright (talk) 01:05, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In a perfect world, that's probably true, but ah well, unfortunately Iceland insists on being European, and therefore part of Afro-eurasia. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 04:00, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * It can insist, but it doesn't make it so. - Flybyright (talk) 21:20, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Geographically it is partially on the European plate, which makes it claim to being European justified. Also, historically, culturally, and ethnically Iceland is European. You can insist it is not but that doesn't make it so. Arnoutf (talk) 21:28, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * No, it's at least half on the North American plate AND it is closer to North American Greenland. - Flybyright (talk) 21:36, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * So it can make a claim to either continent at best. Provide reliable sources (see WP:RS) that support your position and you may have a point. Arnoutf (talk) 21:41, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh the claim is completely true, it is closer to Greenland then anywhere else in Europe. However, it's not considered part of North America, and I've never seen it as such. Its people came from Europe, and continue to claim to be European. It has even applied to the EU. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 00:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Hope this clears it up.Iceland lies on the fault line so it's technicnaly half on each (North America and Europe) but it's politacly in Europe. Hpsuperfan (talk) 03:02, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Consensus
It's nice that there is such a clear example to point to when we need to discuss how &  work. The of this article is the combination of the conventional continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia, which in common English and in most  is going to include—at minimum—the islands lying on their continental shelves. Excluding Britain and Japan from this article makes no more sense than excluding Scandinavia (enisled by the White Sea–Baltic Canal), Africa (enisled by the Suez Canal), and continental Europe (enisled by the Volga–Baltic Waterway). What's left over is called "Asia" and even that is cut up into pieces by waterways in Iraq, India, Malaysia, China...

For that matter, if we're being that silly, we'd need to include separate high-tide and low-tide figures for the land area.

Instead, we stick to the common use of the name, discuss the continents in their normal sense, and map them in their normal sense. We can include separate treatment and separate maps of "control-Eastern-Europe-control-the-Heartland-control-the-world" Mackinder's peculiar and invented idea of the World-Island (his spelling) which does pointedly exclude those outlying islands but even he knew that Britain was part of Europe and Japan part of Asia. He excluded them for political reasons, in order to make a point about Britain and America's position within the emerging world order as railroads began to allow Russia to mobilize its resources. Of course, he was a nut and we shouldn't spend too much time on the idea except at a devoted article (which would be devoted to his ideas, not a geographical entity with no offshore islands.) — Llywelyn II   01:37, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't see a consensus here, simply declaring that one exists doesn't make it so. 176.72.77.103 (talk) 19:57, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Not Being a Super-contenint
Shouldn't Afro-Euroasia be a super-contenint because it's connected to asia which is connected to Europe which makes Afro-Euroasia. Hpsuperfan (talk) 03:02, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Afro-Eurasia is a combination of Africa and Eurasia, which for whatever reason was not spelled Euroasia. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 10:45, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Under Geology it says Afro-Eurasia will become a super-contenint when it collides with Europe.It's already a super-conternint because it connected to Asia.That's what I ment.Sorry if it was hard to understand. Hpsuperfan (talk) 02:03, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Ah. This sounds like tricky semantics either way, but I do agree it sounds weird as it is. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 02:10, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Infobox
I would like some one to add an Infobox to this page please 109.151.165.41 (talk) 18:06, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Merge
Shinji cleaned up some of the people were foisting on this article and that's great but we still have an unhelpful mess of alternative names that we're probably giving  weight to. Just because one scholar coins or employs a term doesn't make it  that belongs in the  section.

Ngram suggests that "Old World" absolutely crushes any alternative names for this landmass and is the  name for this topic; that Shinji didn't do his homework and Africa-Eurasia is more common than the current article name; and that essentially no one writes Afroeurasia as a single word (yet). Scholar gives 800k for "Old World" (including many, many present-day uses), 10k for ["ecumene" &c. (although most are unrelated modern uses, discussing a world culture), 4.5k for "Africa-Eurasia" (showing Ngram was misleading and Shinji did ok: they're almost all treating Africa and Eurasia separately, particularly discussing the collision of their respective tectonic plates), "World Island" has 3k (but mostly off-topic hits for things like "...world. Island..."), 740 for "Afro-Eurasia", 250 for Eufrasia (almost entirely in reference to Hispanic women named for St Euphrosyne: only 1 (!) hit for "Eufrasia"+"Africa"+"Eurasia"), 150 for "Afroeurasia", 13 (!) for "Eurafrasia".

The upshot:
 * 1) We keep redirects from Eurafrasia and Eufrasia but they don't go in the article at all : they are highly obscure s distracting from what this supercontinent is actually called.
 * 2) Afroeurasia is a borderline case—¹/₇ of the title's hits isn't nothing—but it's just a variant spelling and isn't such a common variant that it needs equal billing or placement anywhere higher than a footnote; a redirect is probably just fine.
 * 3) The common name for this topic is Old World. We're creating a  trying to shunt the geographical discussion here and the historical context to Old World but that's simply not how the terms are used. "Old World" absolutely crushes any alternative names for this supercontinent and is used broadly in modern fields to describe it. Of the first 40 results, only one  follows Wikipedia's  in using it to narrowly describe this landmass distinguished from the New World in the context of the Age of Discovery. The other 39 primary hits use it for completely unrelated discussions of epidemiology, botany, biology, zoology, "biogeography", sociology, and history, none of which are off topic.

840,000 v 740: This needs merging. — Llywelyn II   00:50, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Edit: In a related note, those demonyms aren't actually a thing. 2 of the 4 Google Books hits for "I (a)m an old worlder" are Illuminati Formula For Total Mind Control and Alien Incursions. No one has used "Afro-Eurasian" as a demonym except for Reddit user "clopgod". We should not actually be coining these here, regardless of the sound etymology. — Llywelyn II   16:00, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I have re-added the 'Eurafrasia' variant upfront, since this was noted in one of the referenced links. I would also think this article (more geophysical) is a separate concept from the 'Old World' (more socio-ethnohistorical) and should be kept separate from it. Arguably, Eurafrasia has more to do with Pangaea than anything else. ;) 174.89.38.120 (talk) 02:31, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Remove history section
The history section seems largely unnecessary to me. Essentially it's a condensed version of the history of the world, with Oceania and the Americas excised. Because Afro-Eurasia has always contained the significant majority of the world population, the significant majority of world history happened on the landmass.

The pre-historic separation of the human population between the landmasses of Afro-Eurasia, Oceania and the Americas is interesting from an anthropological standpoint. However apart from this, Afro-Eurasia has never been a meaningful subdivision in terms of human history, and the selection of human history that currently forms this section is contrived.

I propose this section be removed entirely. This article is about an entity that is significant in terms of geology, but not modern history. It could potentially be replaced with a short "Anthropology" section. --LukeSurlt c 18:44, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Posted this over a year ago. Any objections if I implement this now? --LukeSurlt c 19:43, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

Circumnavigation
I asked this question elsewhere and got no answer.

Has anyone ever circumnavigated the World Island? --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  10:21, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

nobody in the historic written record has ever been reputed to have done anything like that Paulalexdij (talk) 23:02, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

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Several bodies of water are missing from the map in the infobox
The Caspian Sea and most of the African Great Lakes are not visible on the infobox map without border-lines 86.6.152.180 (talk) 20:08, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

What is Africa joined to?
From the section on Afro-Eurasia's geological history: "...the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez Rifts further divided Africa from the Arabian Plate. Today, Africa is joined to Asia only by a relatively narrow land bridge (which has been split by the Suez Canal at the Isthmus of Suez)..." This is obviously about the link between mainland Africa and the landmass on the Arabian plate. Here, that piece of land is simply called a part of "Asia", which it isn't anywhere else in the article. I've tried naming it there, but "the Arabian Peninsula" doesn't necessarily mean the same thing. Is there a name for that specific landmass that can be used instead? TavianCLirette (talk) 06:49, 22 June 2021 (UTC) TavianCLirette
 * In this context, "Asia" is the correct word. Although we could specify the part of the Asian continent that Africa is joined to and be technically correct, this part of the article is for discussing how the constituent continents, Africa, Asia, and Europe fit together to make Afro-Eurasia, and specifying "lower-level" parts in this sentence is confusing and unnecessary for the reader. --LukeSurlt c 14:17, 22 June 2021 (UTC)
 * Rereading the sentence on its own, it does make sense for it to talk about the main pieces that make the whole Afro-Eurasia. But this isn't about replacing a general name with a specific part for detail, so much as it is about the assertion that the landmass in question is part of one of these continents, especially under the section where it hasn't been referred to that way before. TavianCLirette


 * A bit late to the game here, but I think I see where the confusion in the text lies. The Sinai Peninsula, which is widely considered to be part of "Asia", is definitively a part of the African plate. The African plate extends up that Asian portion of the Eastern Mediterranean coast until Turkey. The plate also incorporates Malta and Sicily, but funnily enough not all of continental Morocco, which belongs to the Eurasian plate, while the rest of the continent is shared with other plates. So of the two sentences you've highlighted, it would seem the first one is the incorrect one, if we're talking about plates- "the Gulf of Aqaba and the coastal Levant constitute the boundaries between the African plate and the Arabian and Anatolian plates." Perhaps a quick addendum on the definition of Africa is in order, however it could be confusing to the reader. Perhaps none of these "boundaries" are super relevant in discussing what is a shared landmass. An exploratory edit is probably in order to sense what should fit in the article. SuperTah (talk) 04:56, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Afro-Eurasia or Africa-Eurasia?
Both words are widely used on the Internet, but which one should we use as the title? My personal preference is Africa-Eurasia. The word Afro mainly refers to a hairstyle typically associated with Africans. It doesn't mean Africa. I have spoken with a few African friends, they actually think Afro-Eurasia to be racist and they don't like this word.

My suggestion is that we change the title to Africa-Eurasia instead. 2001:8003:9008:1301:1086:31F:A6C:F8E2 (talk) 16:26, 29 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Dictionaries confirm that 'afro-' as a combining form is perfectly acceptable in English. This is the entry from the Collins online dictionary.

"Afro- COMBINING FORM Afro- is used to form adjectives and nouns that describe something that is connected with Africa. ...very well known Afro-American family. ...an Afro-centric fashion show."


 * I think the limiting of such usage to a hairsytyle as stated above is disingenuous. Andrewgprout (talk) 18:16, 29 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Not to the ears of my African friends though. They said it sounds racist. Furthermore, the main Wikipedia article for Americans with African descent is African Americans, not Afro-Americans.


 * I would prefer the less controversial word Africa-Eurasia to be the title. 2001:8003:9008:1301:1086:31F:A6C:F8E2 (talk) 01:35, 30 November 2021 (UTC)


 * Be very careful, Wikipedia is not the place to try to right great wrongs. Andrewgprout (talk) 02:23, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

No caspian sea?
On the “globe without borders” option the caspian sea is filled in as green, despite the aral sea right next to it, visible. Cleverjoseph (talk) 11:00, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

area
could\should the article not include at least one reference to the numeric figure given as being the area of this super-landmass with and\or without surrounding islands and with or without internal bodies of water ... Paulalexdij (talk) 23:12, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

"... comprise two or three separate continents..."
"Although Afro-Eurasia is typically considered to comprise two or three separate continents, it is not a proper supercontinent."

Should this line from the intro to the geology section not just say '...comprise three separate continents...'? In what way does it only combine two continents? It literally has three continents in its name. WikidKev (talk) 07:19, 18 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Some models treat Eurasia as a single continent, hence the two parts of the name Afro-Eurasia. CMD (talk) 08:19, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Landmass?
Why is Afro Eurasia considered a landmass, when this article strangely includes islands: Java, Honshu, Britain, etc., as part of it? Because they're certainly not part of this landmass... Zilch-nada (talk) 12:17, 17 July 2023 (UTC)