Experimental projections

[Atarimaster]

Not a new projection but a novel aspect of the azimuthal equidistant in which mainland Europe looks a bit like a mermaid sitting on a rock with her hands on her hips

As much as I try, I do not see the mermaid.

On a less whimsical note, this aspect highlights the symmetry of the Scandinavian and Anatolian Peninsulas, which had never occurred to me before

Oh yeah – I never noticed that, too.

and the waist between the Baltic and Black Seas, which in turn supports the interpretation of "continental" Europe as the world's largest peninsula.

Yes … but of course, the question also is: At which size does a peninsula stop being a peninsula?

[PeteD]

As much as I try, I do not see the mermaid.

Oh dear. I thought it was obvious, but maybe it's just me. If it's like a Rorschach test in that different people see different things, what does it say about me that I see a mermaid so clearly?

Yes … but of course, the question also is: At which size does a peninsula stop being a peninsula?

I would say when it's comparable in size to the landmass that it's attached to, just like a mountain stops being a mountain when it's comparable in size to the body that it's attached to (in which case it's an irregularly shaped body, which is common for asteroids, rather than a body with a mountain on it).

The division of the Old World into Europe, Asia and Africa predates the concept of continents, and Europe can still be counted as a continent by convention, but it's difficult to reconcile the interpretation of Europe as a continent with any physiographic definition of a continent that wouldn't also include other regions such as the Indian subcontinent, Qing China or Arabia that are not conventionally considered to be continents.

[Milo]

Not a new projection but a novel aspect of the azimuthal equidistant in which mainland Europe looks a bit like a mermaid sitting on a rock with her hands on her hips:

Well, the lower half of a mermaid, anyway.

What do the colors represent? White appears to be used for both the Mediterranean Sea and Ukraine. While the war in Ukraine isn't pleasant business, last I checked, Russia hasn't yet sunken the entire country beneath a biblical flood.

...Actually, not just Ukraine. Countries to the north such as Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia appear to also be included.

Blue is used for the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Barents Sea, and Caspian Sea, but white is used for the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean. At least I can't find any places where blue is used on land.

The difference between green and orange-pink is a little more logical, with green in mainland Europe and orange-pink in Scandinavia... and Russia and Turkey for some reason. With hot pink for Kazakhstan.

It feels like you colored in regions solely to make the image work, which feels like cheating. Any area divided into enough small pieces can be colored to form whatever image you want.

Actually, I don't think you can even justify putting Ukraine in white as it being the color of the mermaid's bra. The mermaid has a bare midriff between her tail and bust, which isn't represented in the map. The actual bra should be higher, and the bare shoulders above it are possibly off the map already.

On a less whimsical note, this aspect highlights the symmetry of the Scandinavian and Anatolian Peninsulas, which had never occurred to me before, and the waist between the Baltic and Black Seas, which in turn supports the interpretation of "continental" Europe as the world's largest peninsula.

If not for the fact that modern industrial culture originates from there, Europe probably wouldn't have been considered a continent. Geographically it's pretty firmly attached to Asia, and has been since the Permian. And if you're going to split parts off of Asia just because it's way too big... well, what about the rest of it? Even without Europe, Asia is a huge region, with some very different cultures.

The division of the Old World into Europe, Asia and Africa predates the concept of continents,

"Old World", another term that shows our historical biases. If the Native Americans had crossed the Atlantic first, they'd be the Old World and we'd be the New World.

But I admit that it's useful to have something to call it, and "Afro-Eurasia" doesn't have the same ring to it.

"Asia" originally referred to what we now call the Middle East, i.e., the part of Asia that was known to ancient Europeans. Then when we discovered that the land actually extends a long way beyond that, we just went "okay all of that is Asia I guess".

[PeteD]

Well, the lower half of a mermaid, anyway.

Everything but the head and shoulders is quite a bit more than half, but yes, I admit it's incomplete.

What do the colors represent?
...
It feels like you colored in regions solely to make the image work, ...

Yes, I did.

... which feels like cheating. Any area divided into enough small pieces can be colored to form whatever image you want.

The mermaid's outline follows coastlines except for where Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan meet Syria, Iraq and Iran, which is a relatively short border compared to the length of the coastlines, so I don't think I cheated very much. I just used the dark green, off-white, peach and hot pink colours to highlight the mermaid's features. It would still have the same outline if I'd used the same colour for all of these:

mermaid Europe 2.png (75.23 KiB) Viewed 19046 times

To me, it still looks like a mermaid with her hands on her hips, but if Tobias struggled to see the mermaid with its features highlighted in different colours, I guess he has no chance now.

White appears to be used for both the Mediterranean Sea and Ukraine.

Off-white was used for the Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States, whereas the Altantic Ocean and the Mediterranean and North Seas were light grey. To my eyes looking at my screen, they're clearly different colours, but I guess I should have used a darker grey or just kept all the water the same colour and not tried to depict the rock that the mermaid is sitting on.

Actually, I don't think you can even justify putting Ukraine in white as it being the color of the mermaid's bra. The mermaid has a bare midriff between her tail and bust, which isn't represented in the map. The actual bra should be higher, and the bare shoulders above it are possibly off the map already.

Unfortunately, I didn't manage to find a picture of a mermaid that was an exact match. I think that would be asking a bit much.

If not for the fact that modern industrial culture originates from there, Europe probably wouldn't have been considered a continent. Geographically it's pretty firmly attached to Asia, and has been since the Permian. And if you're going to split parts off of Asia just because it's way too big... well, what about the rest of it? Even without Europe, Asia is a huge region, with some very different cultures.

I couldn't agree more.

[PeteD]

Yes … but of course, the question also is: At which size does a peninsula stop being a peninsula?

I'd just like to add that if you considered "continental" Europe to be a peninsula, then it would only be the world's largest by a relatively modest margin.

Wikipedia gives an area of 3.2 million km² for the Arabian Peninsula.

If we define the waist of a hypothetical European Peninsula as running from the Gulf of Finland to the Sea of Azov, i.e. above the mermaid's bust, then this European Peninsula roughly corresponds to the EU plus Switzerland, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Kaliningrad Oblast and East Thrace, and minus Sweden, Finland, Ireland and Cyprus. I get an area of 4.5 million km² for this region, less than 50 % greater than that of the Arabian Peninsula.

On the other hand, you could instead take the narrower waist running from Kaliningrad to Odesa, i.e. corresponding to the mermaid's waist. This definition would exclude the Baltic States, Belarus and most of Ukraine, taking the area down to 3.5 million km², only around 10 % greater than that of the Arabian Peninsula.

[Milo]

If we define the waist of a hypothetical European Peninsula as running from the Gulf of Finland to the Sea of Azov, i.e. above the mermaid's bust, then this European Peninsula roughly corresponds to the EU plus Switzerland, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Kaliningrad Oblast and East Thrace, and minus Sweden, Finland, Ireland and Cyprus.

If you follow political borders rather than just drawing a straight line, then this basically amounts to saying "mainland Europe, minus Russia and Scandinavia". (Since we're analyzing it as a peninsula, islands like Britain should be excluded per definition.)

Excluding Russia makes some sense on the grounds that if you look at Russia on a map, it looks more Asian than European, extending far to the east all the way to the coast, and lying directly north of other generally-accepted-to-be-Asian countries such as Turkey. Indeed, I used to think of Russia as Asian.

However, reality is more nuanced. Political borders are arbitrary human constructs, and natural-geographically, there are few to no landmarks marking the boundary between the Ukrainian/Belarussian and Russian parts of the Russian Plain. The conventionally-taken border between Europe and Asia, the Ural mountains, at least have a geological justification as where the boundary of Europe and Asia used to be hundreds of millions of years ago when they were proper continents. (Although erosian since then has made the Urals into relatively low and unimpressive mountains compared to many others, it should be noted that they've actually suffered less erosion than other mountain ranges of comparable age.) Furthermore, allowing humans back into the equation, although it's only around one-quarter of its land area, the vast majority of Russia's human population live in "European Russia" west of the Ural mountains, with Siberia fairly sparsely populated, and culturally and linguistically the dominant ethnicity in Russia is pretty firmly affiliated with other East European countries, and far less so with Asian ones.

Excluding Scandinavia is just a logical corollary of excluding Russia, since the only land border between Scandinavia and the mainland lies along Russia - although the fact that it extends far west from its base helps it come over as "European" in most people's minds.

Still, when analyzing Europe as a peninsula, it makes a great deal of sense to exclude what does indeed look very much like a separate peninsula with about the same base.

Then again, even internally to the "European Peninsula", Europe is pretty peninsular as it is, with sub-peninsulas such as Iberia, Italy, and the Balkans. Overall the coastline of Europe is far more elaborate than... any other part of the world of comparable size, really. Continent or not, I find Europe to be the most interesting part of the world to look at on a map. Certainly moreso than Africa, which has one noteworthy curve and that's about it.

Wikipedia gives an area of 3.2 million km² for the Arabian Peninsula.

I get an area of 4.5 million km² for this region, less than 50 % greater than that of the Arabian Peninsula.

Also worth noting is that Wikipedia lists the Indian subcontinent as 4.44 million km² (isn't that just Mm²?). I'm not sure exactly how this is calculated (if it's just based on the political borders, then I'd consider it wrong, as I consider only about half of Pakistan to be part of the Indian subcontinent, while the other half is part of the Persian Plateau - and also, if we're considering mainland peninsulas, then Sri Lanka should be excluded, which Wikipedia seems to be counting), but it's very close to your value.

[Atarimaster]

To me, it still looks like a mermaid with her hands on her hips, but if Tobias struggled to see the mermaid with its features highlighted in different colours, I guess he has no chance now.

No, I can see it much better now!
Apparently, the colours that you used to highlight the features were actually confusing me…

If not for the fact that modern industrial culture originates from there, Europe probably wouldn't have been considered a continent. Geographically it's pretty firmly attached to Asia, and has been since the Permian. And if you're going to split parts off of Asia just because it's way too big... well, what about the rest of it? Even without Europe, Asia is a huge region, with some very different cultures.

I can agree here, too.

[PeteD]

If you follow political borders rather than just drawing a straight line, then this basically amounts to saying "mainland Europe, minus Russia and Scandinavia".

Yes, that's a much more concise definition. My long list of countries was just from the way that I calculated the area.

Then again, even internally to the "European Peninsula", Europe is pretty peninsular as it is, with sub-peninsulas such as Iberia, Italy, and the Balkans. Overall the coastline of Europe is far more elaborate than... any other part of the world of comparable size, really.

Yes, and the Iberian and Italian Peninsulas (or sub-peninsulas) also have mountain ranges where they join the rest of Europe, leading to easily defensible natural barriers on all sides. Add to these the English Channel and the Danevirke, and you must have a greater number of sizeable regions completely surrounded by easily defensible barriers than in any other part of the world of comparable size as well. Some cite this as a factor as to why Europe remained politically fragmented after the fall of the Roman Empire while China, which has easily defensible external but not internal natural barriers, reunified a mere 60 years after the fall of the contemporaneous Han Empire. They usually go on to cite the fact that the different states of Europe were independent of each other, and therefore in competition with each other, yet sufficiently well connected to be in close contact with each other, thereby enabling the spread of new ideas and inventions, as a factor as to why the Age of Discovery and the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions occurred in Europe rather than in China.

Of course, this isn't the whole story because there was also political fragmentation between parts of Europe not separated by easily defensible barriers and because there were also other factors involved.

Also worth noting is that Wikipedia lists the Indian subcontinent as 4.44 million km² (isn't that just Mm²?). I'm not sure exactly how this is calculated (if it's just based on the political borders, then I'd consider it wrong, as I consider only about half of Pakistan to be part of the Indian subcontinent, while the other half is part of the Persian Plateau - and also, if we're considering mainland peninsulas, then Sri Lanka should be excluded, which Wikipedia seems to be counting), but it's very close to your value.

Yes, but this is comparing apples and oranges. The Indian subcontinent extends inland and is bounded not just by water but also by mountain ranges, so the conventional definition of Europe bounded by the Caucasus and Ural Mountains, for which Wikipedia gives an area of 10.2 million km², would be a fair comparison. On the other hand, India's Deccan Peninsula would be a fair comparison for a European Peninsula. I couldn't find a value for its area on Wikipedia, but this website gives 800,000 square miles, which is around 2.1 million km².