I would like to know technically what continents Russia and The middle east lie upon.  If only certain countries of the middle east are part of particular regions, thats fine.  Please tell me your source because I'm not completly trusting of what wiki has to say.
122007
Russia stretches all the way from Europe to Asia. The "middle east" is not stricty defined in Geography but basically means those countries stuck in the middle between asia, europe and africa; maybe that's why they are always fighting!
400809
The map of Israel and Palestine says it all:-\n\nhttp://zionismexplained.org/map/landmap1.jpg
275780
America is commonly accepted as the United States.  I know it is hugely incorrect, but that is how it is interperted.\n\nFor fucks sake, Jessica, do you have your own thoughts, or do you just post what somebody else has already writen?
509589
Good question. I think Europe and Asia were separate but did not slam into each other as hard as India has slammed into Asia. Also India is still called a Sub-Continent  by some. Also some people do not think of Austrailia as a continent but as an island. 9 continents, I don't know about that. Just 7 that we have now.
288427
People from Western Europe/US tend to think of Eastern Europe and former Soviet countries as "not European" I have noticed....I guess because those countries were closed off for so long? Or they're arrogant? I don't know. Lame but true!
459885
the Plains of European Russia, the West Siberian \nPlains, the Central Siberian Plateau and Mountains and \nUplands.\n\nThe Plains of European Russia form a part of the Central \nEuropean plains and extend from the Arctic Ocean in the \nnorth to the Black Sea. These fertile plains are drained by \nseveral rivers of which Volga is the most important. It \nfalls into the Caspian Sea.\n\nThe West Siberian plains are lowlands between the Urals on \nthe west and the Yenisey on the east. They gently slope \ntowards the Arctic Ocean in the north .\n\nThe Central Siberian Plateau lies between the river Yenisey \nin the west and river Lena in the east. Deeply eroded by \nrivers it rises to a height of 500 metres.\n\nTo the east of the river Lena are the rugged mountains of \nEastern Siberia.These include the Kamchatka region of \nearthquakes and volcanic activities .The Caucasus mountains \nrun between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea in the south \nwestern region .Mt Elbrus , with a height of 5,633 \nmetres ,is the highest mountain peak in Russia .\n\n\n=]
347299
Your questions have more to do with history than with geography...\n\nWhy is North America always on the far left and Asia on the far right?  Well, let me rephrase that: why is Europe always in the middle?  Because the first world maps were put together in Europe, which for a long time thought itself to be the center of the world.  Since then, the layout became a sort of an unwritten standard, partly because it allows the greatest amount of landmass to be shown with the least distortion... \n\nWhy are North Americans called Westerners?  Again, the answer has to do with Europe.  Ancient Greeks thought of themselves as Westerners, since they only knew of major civilizations to their East (most notably, Persia).  Romans have inherited that notion, which subsequently passed on to medieval Europe.  There, it took on an additional meaning, because in 1054, Christianity divided into Catholicism (Western Christianity) and Orthodoxy (Eastern Christianity).  A Westerner, therefore, was someone who thought that the pope in Rome (rather than the patriarch in Constantinople) was the highest religious authority.  Reformation did not change this notation, since there was no clear geographic boundary between Catholicism and Protestantism.  Catholics and Protestants were still collectively referred to as Westerners, as opposed to Muslims or Eastern Christians.  When Europeans started moving to North America (as well as Australia and New Zealand), they still thought of themselves as Westerners...\n\nMore recently, West and East were labels hung on the opposing parties in the Cold War.  U.S., its Western European allies, and Japan were collectively referred to as "the West"; Soviet Union, the countries of the Warsaw Pact (all of which were located in Eastern Europe) and a few other Communist countries (such as Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and North Korea) were collectively referred to as "the East".  A funny thing about it is that Greece and Turkey, which belong to the "East" in the religious meaning of the term (Greece is an Orthodox country, while Turkey is Muslim), belong to the "West" in terms of Cold War geopolitics, since they are NATO members...
580208
The US supporst Israel for the sole and simple reason that it is a highly strategic position in the middle east and one that needs our help.  Its a case of "you sratch my back and I scratch yours" right?  Yes we did in fact embargo S. Africa, however, S. Africa is a highly divided nation whose sides are more than willing to accept help from anyone (and believe me, America has its hand there too).  S. Africa offers no political or military advantage.  What America does there is purely arbitrary.  They have some diamonds and a little oil, but so does Russia.  So, that's why.  Political science is kinda my thing
623099
For starters, and this is an incomplete answer, but the Eurocentric perspective does not see Europe as a western peninsula of Asia, but actually as its own continent.  Europe is it's own continent according to the Eurocentric perspective.  \n\nBasing its world-view on Platonic essentialism, there is something "European" about Europe and its peoples, animals, climate, etc, so that there must be something "Asian" about Asia's people, animals, climate, etc.\n\nActually, it's all pretty much the same.  Europeans are really Asians, but at around 1450, they were the most backwards region of the planet--they were the furthest from the great Asian empires of the time.  So they had to rally around their religion, Christianity, and become "superior" by virtue of their belief in Christ.\n\nLater, they believed themselves superior because of their race, intellect, rationality, peaceful nature--all the stuff that makes them see themselves as the pinnacle of humanity.\n\nAsians see Europeans as pink, hairy barbarians.  OK, maybe I'm overgeneralizing a bit, but Asians see themselves as a more ancient people, and not really "asians" at all.  There are Chinese, Koreans, Thai, Indians, Sikh, Japanese, Khmer, Pilipino (no "h"), Samoan, etc., each with a vast (if untold) history.  Each radically different from each other as German is to French, but still having religious and cultural roots.\n\nSo, where did the term come from?  From Europeans, of course.\nIn the Platonic world view, rocks are rocks because of their "rockness."  In the Socratic worldview, rocks are rocks because of their relationship to papers and scissors, for example, because of their connections to other things.\n\nNot all rocks are the same or course.  Diamonds are much more expensive compared to ordinary pebbles, but not because of their "diamondness," (the Platonic/essentialist view) but rather because it's related to market demand, war in the Congo, sellers and resellers each trying to make a buck, TV commercials, weddings and so on (the Socratic-Hegelian/dialectical worldview).\n\nSo it goes that Asians are Asians, but this really doesn't make us understand Asians, but makes an easy definition to "Europeans" and around 1450 and the coming rise of Europe, the Europeans needed to figure things out the quick and easy way.  They were going from bottom of the barrel in civilization, to masters of the universe, for good and bad.\n\nSo if you see the world from an essentialist perspective, then Europe (or Asia) is the center of the world, and everything else revolves around it.  If you see the world from the dialectical perspective, then you see the world as related to each other.  Europe would not be Europe without Asia, and vice-versa.  Each needs the other, the way diamonds need middlemen to become valuable.\n\nWhen it comes to economic integration, IJapan, India and China, to a certain degree are fostering cooperation over competition, because of the need to compete with Europe over markets and create new markets.  In other words, if India and China do good with each other, Chinese people will buy Indian products rather than European products.  This fosters an Asia-first perspective.\n\nTo read more--a tough but good read, read "The Myth of Continents" by Martin W. Lewis and Karen Wigen.
240983
Yes, the 5 Olympic rings represent the 5 continents. This is based on 5 continents model.\n\n"The 7-continent model is usually taught in Western Europe, China, and most native English-speaking countries. The 6-continent combined-America model is taught in Latin America. The 6-continent combined-Eurasia model is preferred by the geographic community, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Japan. In all of these cases, the names Australasia or Oceania may be used in place of Australia; in Canada, the government-approved Atlas of Canada names 7 continents and indicates Oceania instead.\n\nHistorians may use the 5-continent model in which North Africa is separated from Sub-Saharan Africa and included in Eurasia (Jared Diamond) or the 4-continent Afro-Eurasian (Andre Gunder Frank)."
648703
Hmm- which Palestine did Israel wipe out, since there has NEVER been a country called Palestine?\n\nAnd yeah- the media rightly let everyone know that the rteligious fanatic that rules Iran threatened genocide against a neighboring country- gotta wonder why that little fact doesn't bother you...
445919
Where is ISRAEL???\n\nI do not see ISRAEL on that list, why???\n\nEDIT:\nI would rather ISRAEL stand alone...She already does anyway.
638979
Those territories were parts of other sovereign countries prior to that war.  It wasn't empty space on the far side of Neptune.
216527
i'm from the middle east but it's not my homecountry.cheers!\np.s.why the middle east though?
677220
It has a little to do with religion, but more to do with politics.  The Greeks were the originators of Orthodox Catholicism.  The Russians adopted it later and everyone was happy for a while.  Then the Greeks declined and Russia ascended in power.  When Byzantium collapsed, the Russians essentially took over as leaders and protectors of the Orthodox religion.  Of course they made certain changes that the Greeks didn't agree with and you see your first big split.  All's cool again for a while until Russian Orthodoxy decides to make a few reforms.  Nothing major, but trying to correct some corrupted texts, slightly change a few traditions, that sort of thing.  Unfortunately, the Russian method of encouraging change has always been rather...forceful.  Whoever wouldn't change was excomunicated.  The big problem with this was that it seemed to say that all the people and saints who had gone before and practiced Orthodoxy by the old ways were irredeemably wrong.  Certain traditional Russians couldn't accept such this, and the second big split occurred.  Then you have Russia's imperial ambitions.  Russia thought of itself as the defender of the faith, with Moscow being like a '3rd Rome.' It wished to be a hegemon in Eastern Europe and used this religious mandate as justification.  The other countries would have been more or less willing to let Russia have it's way - it's nice having big friends, after all - except that as the best and the biggest, Russia expected these other countries to become like mini-Russias.  Russia thus tried to impose its language, government, religion, etc. on them.  Eventually these countries had enough and wanted to split.  Now keep in mind that religion at this time is inherently linked to power and to government.  To split from Russia but keep its religious leaders as the head of your religion is not to split from Russia at all.  So you end up seeing a lot of nationally divided splinter groups.  I'm not saying there aren't also legitimate theological differences, but they were probbly  initiated and exaggerated by political factors.
441705
they are asian/caucasian if you want to try to label them.  the euopean continent separates from asia at a line roughly drawn down the middle of the ural mountains.
303678
Science explains that the world used to look more like a place called "Pangea", where all of the continents were connected. Over billions of years, the continents started to separate until they were in their present state.\n\nLook up "Pangea" for more information.