50 Fun Facts About Eurasia

Which 2,500 km mountain range in Russia is the conventional boundary between Europe and Asia?

The Ural Mountains make a low wall for a continental border: their highest peak, Mount Narodnaya, reaches only 1,895 metres.

Which landlocked country, the world's largest, moved its footballers from Asia's confederation to UEFA?

Kazakhstan lies mostly in Central Asia, but a slice of its territory extends into Eastern Europe, and its footballers have played in UEFA since 2002.

Which Siberian lake, the deepest in the world, holds more than a fifth of Earth's fresh surface water?

Baikal is also the world's oldest lake, at 25 to 30 million years, and holds more water than all the North American Great Lakes combined.

Which empire became the largest contiguous empire in history, stretching from the Sea of Japan to Eastern Europe?

The Mongol Empire grew from a council in 1206 that proclaimed Temüjin, better known as Genghis Khan, ruler of all the tribes he had united.

Which Eurasian bird of the crow family was the first non-mammal found to recognise itself in a mirror?

The Eurasian magpie passed the mirror test in 2008, after researchers placed coloured stickers on five birds' throats where only a reflection could reveal them.

Which dystopian novel imagines a superstate called Eurasia locked in endless war with Oceania and Eastasia?

Nineteen Eighty-Four has Oceania's enemy switch from Eurasia to Eastasia in the middle of Hate Week, and George Orwell's ruling Party simply rewrites the records.

Which Ice Age giant survived on Wrangel Island, off northern Eurasia, until about 4,000 years ago?

The woolly mammoth vanished from mainland Siberia around 10,000 years ago, yet an isolated herd lasted another 6,000 years on this Arctic island.

Which salt lake bordering Jordan has the lowest shores on Earth, more than 400 metres below sea level?

The Dead Sea is nearly ten times as salty as the ocean, which is why swimmers float on it and almost nothing lives in it.

Which strait runs through the middle of Istanbul, splitting the city between Europe and Asia?

The Bosporus is the world's narrowest strait used for international shipping, and three bridges now carry traffic between the two continents.

Which pandemic swept west across Eurasia in the 1340s and killed between 30% and 60% of Europe's population?

The Black Death has been traced to graves near Lake Issyk-Kul in modern Kyrgyzstan, where the plague strain was the direct ancestor of the one that devastated Europe.

Which network of trade routes across Eurasia had its name popularised by a German geographer in 1877?

Silk Road translates the German Seidenstraße, a term popularised by Ferdinand von Richthofen after his seven expeditions to China.

Which body of water between Europe and Asia is the world's largest lake, despite being called a sea?

The Caspian Sea holds 40 to 44% of all the lake water in the world and covers an area larger than Germany.

Which stretch of water, about 82 km wide at its narrowest, separates Eurasia from North America?

The Bering Strait holds two islands, Big Diomede in Russia and Little Diomede in the United States, that sit only 3.8 km apart.

Which tectonic plate drifted north from Gondwana and crashed into Eurasia, pushing up the Himalayas?

The Indian plate moved north at about 20 cm a year after breaking away some 100 million years ago, and the crust folded in the crash became the world's highest range.

Which extinct humans, named after a German valley, lived across western Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago?

Neanderthals never quite vanished: genome work in 2010 showed they interbred with modern humans, and people of non-African ancestry still carry traces of their DNA.

Which Pacific port is the eastern end of the Trans-Siberian Railway, more than 9,000 km by rail from Moscow?

Vladivostok has been linked directly to Moscow since 1916 by the longest railway line in the world, a journey that crosses eight time zones.

Which dormant volcano in Russia's Caucasus, 5,642 metres high, is counted as the highest peak in Europe?

Mount Elbrus is also the highest volcano in all of Eurasia, and each of its two summits is a dormant volcanic dome.

Which Italian merchant spent 17 years in Kublai Khan's China and later dictated his travels to a cellmate?

Marco Polo reached home in Venice after 24 years away, and the book he dictated later inspired Christopher Columbus.

What name is given to the belt of grassland stretching 8,000 km across Eurasia from Manchuria to Hungary?

The Steppe is open plain with no closed forest except near rivers and lakes, and Eurasia's belt of it is also known simply as the Great Steppe.

Which island sits astride the rift where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates are pulling apart?

Iceland's old parliament site, Thingvellir, lies in a rift valley that marks the crest of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the boundary between the two plates.

Which river, the longest in Eurasia, flows for more than 6,000 km without leaving a single country?

The Yangtze drains one-fifth of China's land, and nearly a third of the country's people live in its basin.

Which river, the longest in Europe, is widely regarded as the national river of Russia?

The Volga never reaches an ocean, draining instead into a landlocked sea, and five of Russia's ten largest cities lie in its basin.

Which river passes through or along ten countries and four national capitals on its way to the Black Sea?

The Danube rises in Germany's Black Forest and passes Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest and Belgrade, more capitals than any other river in the world.

Which vast upland north of the Himalayas, averaging over 4,500 metres, is nicknamed the Roof of the World?

The Tibetan Plateau is also called the Third Pole, because its ice fields hold the largest reserve of fresh water outside the polar regions.

Which peninsula, the largest in the world, was formed when the Red Sea Rift tore it away from Africa?

The Arabian Peninsula covers more than 3.2 million square km and makes up most of the land on its own tectonic plate.

Which artificial waterway, opened in 1869, cut through the only land bridge joining Africa to Eurasia?

The Suez Canal took a decade to dig under a company formed by the French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps, and it runs 193 km at sea level.

Which channel at the mouth of the Mediterranean leaves just 14 km of water between Eurasia and Africa?

The Strait of Gibraltar is flanked by heights that antiquity called the Pillars of Hercules, which gave the passage its Latin name, Fretum Herculeum.

Which animal, domesticated on the plains of western Eurasia around 2200 BCE, transformed travel and warfare?

The horse in every modern stable descends from that single domestication, genetic studies show, not from the older Central Asian herds once given the credit.

Which king, tutored by Aristotle, won an empire reaching from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River?

Alexander the Great was undefeated in battle and founded more than twenty cities, the most prominent of them Alexandria in Egypt.

Which Central Asian salt lake, once among the world's four largest lakes, shrank to a tenth of its size by 2007?

The Aral Sea dried up after Soviet irrigation projects diverted the rivers that fed it, and its eastern basin is now called the Aralkum Desert.

Which landmass, the northern half of Pangaea, broke apart when the North Atlantic Ocean opened?

Laurasia is a portmanteau of Laurentia and Eurasia, and its southern counterpart within Pangaea was Gondwana.

Which British geographer argued that whoever held the heartland of Eurasia could control the world?

Halford Mackinder set out the idea in a 1904 paper to the Royal Geographical Society, and his 1919 book named Africa, Europe and Asia together the World-Island.

Which book by Jared Diamond argues that Eurasia's east–west axis helped crops and livestock spread?

Guns, Germs, and Steel points out that Eurasia's barley, wheat, goats, sheep and cattle could spread along the same latitude from one end of the landmass to the other.

Which language family, the mother tongue of over 3.4 billion people, includes Hindi, Persian and English?

Indo-European languages all descend from a single prehistoric tongue, Proto-Indo-European, which linguists have reconstructed from its descendants.

Which arc of land through Iraq, Syria and the Levant is believed to be where settled farming began?

The Fertile Crescent owes its name to the archaeologist James Henry Breasted, who popularised it from 1914, and writing, the wheel and glass all emerged there too.

What name is given to the drowned land that once joined Britain to mainland Europe across the North Sea?

Doggerland sank beneath rising seas between 10,000 and 7,000 years ago; its name comes from the Dogger Bank, itself named after Dutch fishing boats.

Which 1,250 km peninsula in the Russian Far East holds around 160 volcanoes, 29 of them still active?

Kamchatka's volcanoes form part of the Pacific Ring of Fire and are protected together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

What nickname, popularised by Kipling's novel Kim, was given to British–Russian rivalry over Central Asia?

The Great Game was coined in 1840 by Captain Arthur Conolly, a British intelligence officer, and the two empires never went to full-scale war with each other over it.

Which wild cat with black ear tufts and a bobbed tail ranges across Eurasia from Northern Europe to Siberia?

The Eurasian lynx is the largest of the four lynx species, and there have been proposals to bring it back to the Scottish Highlands.

Which country's Tanjung Piai, within sight of Singapore, is the southernmost point of mainland Eurasia?

Malaysia has land even farther south than Tanjung Piai, but it lies in Sarawak on the island of Borneo rather than on the mainland.

Which headland west of Lisbon, with a lighthouse lit since 1772, is the westernmost point of mainland Eurasia?

Cape Roca, known locally as Cabo da Roca, is where the Sintra mountains reach the Atlantic, inside a natural park about 42 km from the Portuguese capital.

Which Russian cape, once known by Captain Cook's name East Cape, is the easternmost point of mainland Eurasia?

Cape Dezhnev was renamed in 1898 after Semyon Dezhnev, who in 1648 became the first sailor from Europe recorded rounding its tip.

Which vanished sea, named after a Greek water goddess, closed as southern continents drifted into Eurasia?

The Tethys Ocean did not vanish entirely: the Mediterranean is a fragment of it, and the collisions that closed it raised the Alps.

Which Russian village, where schools close only below −55 °C, is the coldest permanently inhabited place on Earth?

Oymyakon recorded −67.7 °C at its weather station in February 1933, and a monument in the square marks an unofficial reading of −71.2 °C.

Which Iranic nomads, skilled in mounted warfare, ruled the plains north of the Black Sea from the 8th century BC?

The Scythians held those plains until the Sarmatians conquered them around the 3rd century BC, and their last remnants were absorbed by the early Middle Ages.

Which Russian waterway, the Tanais of the ancient Greeks, was once seen as the border of Europe and Asia?

The Don River is the fifth-longest in Europe, and Tanais was also the name of an ancient city that stood on it.

Which belt of coniferous forest, the world's largest land biome, covers most of Sweden, Finland and Siberia?

The Taiga changes character as it crosses Eurasia: Scandinavian stretches mix spruce, pine and birch, while eastern Siberia is one vast larch forest.

Which peninsula, bounded by the Black, Aegean and Mediterranean seas, makes up most of Turkey's land?

Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, and the Sea of Marmara separates it from Thrace in Europe.

Which rodent, the largest native to Eurasia, was hunted down to about 1,200 animals by the early 1900s?

The Eurasian beaver was prized for its fur and for castoreum, a scent-gland secretion once believed to be medicinal, and it has since been returned to much of its old range.

Which 1908 explosion over Central Siberia is blamed on a meteor that burst in the air without leaving a known fragment?

The Tunguska event released an estimated 10 to 15 megatons of TNT some 5 to 10 km above the ground, enough to destroy an entire major city.