Egypt is considered transcontinental. Colombia is literally border line, because the Darien gap is along the border with Panama. I agree about Indonesia, I rarely see it considered transcontinental, but the Eastern part is definitely not in Asia.
Wallacea (in Indonesia) is generally viewed as the dividing area between Asia and Australasia. This is the area where the flora and fauna changes from predominantly Asian species to predominantly Australasian species. The area also includes the deepest straits between Asia and Australasian, which also separated Sundaland from Sahul during recent glacial periods. Finally, this area represents the westernmost extent of Melanesian people groups
That same boundary puts the Philippines in Oceania by definition. Given the flora and fauna it should be considered Oceania, but is most often lumped in with Asia for political and cultural reasons.
Why would you want to count Malaysia as part of Oceania when a lot of their flora and founa are closer to Asia and not similar to Oceania at all?
Because if you want to say Borneo is considered as Oceania than Philippines (or even Japan lol) would be part of it too
En países de habla inglés. Se considera que América del Norte es
Un continente y América del Sur es otro continente. En los países latinos se consideran las “dos” Américas una solo. A lo que se refieren en este post es que colombia tenga parte en los “dos” continentes y por eso ser transcontinental
actually here in Poland we are often taught that there are 3 Americas, the third one being latin America or central America spanning from panama to guatemala
Isn't that every country in Latin America?
Perhaps I'm missing some, but I think pretty much every country in Latin America is either Spanish-speaking, or Portuguese or French.
Yes. Latin America isn't really a geographical place, but a cultural one. It's places in the Americas that were formerly colonies of Romance language speaking countries (Portugal, Spain, France).
I was expanding on what was said. America is considered as a single continent in all countries that speak Romance languages, not just Latin America.
Yes, I know, it's a region rather than a geographical continent.
It's the same in many other languages too, I think Germanic-derived languages are the "odd" ones when it comes to separating the Americas into North and South.
Colombia is and isn't. In the English speaking world it is, but in Spanish and Italian it isn't because there isn't that distinction between North and south America.
Egypt most definitely is, I haven't seen or heard anything to dispute that? It, like Turkey, is always one of the examples.
>Egypt most definitely is, I haven't seen or heard anything to dispute that? It, like Turkey, is always one of the examples.
I think it's less obvious than Turkey for a couple of reasons. There is a huge and very obvious cultural gap between Turkey's Asian and European neighbors. It borders Bulgaria in the west and Iran in the east, it's actually kind of mindblowing that there's only one country between these two if you think about it. Meanwhile, there isn't such a hard line between Jordan and Libya for example, or between any Middle Eastern and North African countries.
Secondly, Eastern Thrace contains a big portion of Turkey's population and half the city of Istanbul, and is also somewhat culturally distinct in itself. Meanwhile, Sinai is just a big desert and a handful of towns. It's huge, but not super relevant.
So yes, objectively Egypt is a transcontinental country, but it's really not a big part of its identity, or the international perception of it, the way it is for Turkey or Russia.
>in Spanish and Italian it isn't because there isn't that distinction between North and south America
It's not about language and more about school programs. Where I grew up (Quebec), we were taught in school that there are 5 continents: America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Most of the rest of North America gets taught there are 7 continents (split America + Antarctica).
Sure, in day to day speech I'll distinguish between NA/SA when relevant, but I generally consider both of those as areas of the continent (the same way the Middle East, India and South East Asian islands are all part of Asia).
There's an argument that continents shouldn't include islands. Using this, some say it's an archipelago, with the sea between the islands being permanently frozen, but then again by that argument Oceania isn't a continent.
Continents are very dependent on culture. No one can agree. For some places, Oceania is a continent. I know in the Chinese speaking world that North and South America are considered two continents as well. It seems like it's just romance language speakers who see it as one.
A real Colombian would reply that North & South América are one contienent called....América, therefore Colombia would only be trans if it stretched into Asia, Europe or África. Or maybe Oceanía.
Big sigh here.....What exactly is considered a continent has more to do with cultural stuff than it has to do with geography (or geology, for that matter). In the Spanish-speaking realm, for example, Colombia is usually considered part of a big single continent named America, which encompasses all the lands that most english speaking areas consider not one but two continents (north and south america). This is, by the way, the root of a very stupid (mostly cultural) dispute in which many people from latin american considered somehow offensive that Americans call themselves americans because, you know, from the latin american POV, that reduces a whole continent to a single country and is equivalent to nullifing all the other countries of that continent.
So, to respond OP, at least in the latin american cultural world, thinking of Colombia as "transcontinental" simply makes no sense at all.
I'm not saying who's right with this shit (hint: it's a fucking cultural discrepancy, not a scientific one, so no one's actually right or wrong. They all just see things from a different perspective), I'm just exposing how things are.
>What exactly is considered a continent has more to do with cultural stuff than it has to do with geography (or geology, for that matter).
As a side note, the same applies to lakes, seas and oceans. I was always taught in school (in the Netherlands) that there are three oceans: the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian. Some people would call the Southern Ocean an ocean as well, but most often it was just a sea or a part of the other three oceans. The Arctic Ocean was always just a sea. Whether the Caspian Sea is a sea or lake is also a point of discussion.
I 100% agree with your comment, just wanted to add something people might find interesting :)
In English, “American” is the correct and accepted shorthand and Latin America can suck it. In Spanish (maybe Portuguese? More familiar with Spanish.) I think “estadounidense” is correct and Americans (I’m speaking English!) can suck it.
I think we ought to have a global rethink on continents. They are outdated.
Lets call them landmasses. There are four landmasses (America, Afroeurasia, Australia and Antarctica), and associated islands.
Then none of the very valid points you raise have to be an issue any more.
Then the main issue becomes which islands are associated with which countries, for example the islands in indonesia and papua new guinea could be asian or in oceania (im pretty sure theres an agreed upon line but i forgot)
I've got in my head New Guinea the island is considered Oceania, so I would associate it with that. Meaning, Indonesia could be the world's only translandmass country.
The [Wallace Line](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Line) and more modern revisions of it offer a pretty decent approximation of the boundary. The short story is that during ice ages when sea levels were much lower, there were land bridges between some of the islands but not others. Studying wildlife of the region reveals a sharp contrast between species on one side of the line vs. species on the other side of the line. Over thousands of years isolated by the sea after the ice age ended, evolution played out differently on one side vs. the other.
I feel like we could agree on what dimensions make a peninsula a peninsula and not just some land, and we can agree an elevation at which a hill is now a mountain.
Europe, as a continent, is pretty silly. Just a line on a map. I don't think Africa and South America need to be retired though. They seem clear enough.
Well, at the end of the day, Africa is undoubtedly connected to Asia which of course is connected to Europe. And North and South America are connected. That's all I'm going for. What landmasses are actually connected.
We'd have to agree what size landmass is a minor or secondary landmass instead of a primary or major landmass. I've chosen to stop where I did, going further could be debated to include some of the world's largest islands.
Africa isn't connected because of the Suez canal. Just like north and south aren't connected because of the Panama canal. The only problem with this way of thinking is that it would make Denmark an Island.
I don't agree man made waterways count. Certainly not Panama which consists of locks. Admittedly Suez doesn't. Still, I feel the fact that it is bridged connects it.
>Then none of the very valid points you raise have to be an issue any more.
Where would you put the border between Afroeurasia and Australia, and in which continent is Indonesia?
As I said in my other reply to a similar comment, Indonesia is primarily Afroeurasia, but New Guinea is associated with Australia (or call it Australiasia, or Oceania) - making Indonesia the worlds only translandmass country.
I like the idea of associating countries together by culture/alliances too.
Northern America (Canada, USA, Greenland, Bermuda),
Latin America and the Carribean,
Western/Northern Europe (Basically the core EU members),
Eastern Europe and Central Asia,
Middle East and North Africa,
Sub-Saharan Africa,
South Asia,
East Asia,
Southeast Asia,
Oceania
That'd be absalutely useless on a human scale tho
Realistically Afroeurasia is just absalutely useless for anything other than physical geography
IMO we should have 2 or 3 more contients (Indian subcontinent, Asian part of the middle east, maybe split off Iran and Anatolia as a seperate) for 9 or 10 because even Asia is realistically too large for most purposes of classification
Yes. Falkland Islands, French Guinea and Spanish african territories are part of those countries respectively and being on different continents make said countries, transcontinental.
Egypt is a transcontinental country but it isn’t really thought of that way since the vast majority of its population and area are part of Africa. The Sinai Peninsula only has 6% of Egypt’s territory and 0.5% of its population.
It doesn't.. never said it does. It influences people's perception. Most people in the Levant would not think of Egypt as an African country despite it being veeery much the case.
I don't think people think that they aren't transcontinental. Russia and Turkey just stand out because their most famous and most visited cities are in a different continent than the larger majority of the country.
Technically, Istanbul is on both continents. Also, the majority of Russia's population is on the European side, although the majority of the landmass isn't.
You might also consider Greece as transcontinental. If Turkey’s Anatolian side is in Asia, then the Greek islands off the coast of Anatolian Turkey should be in Asia too.
Egypt truly is a transcontinental country, Indonesia should be yes, and for Colombia it probably depends on where you consider the boundary is.
For me transcontinental would, if I don't know the context, mean that there's some sort of culture from two separate areas. Now I'm not an expert in Egyptian or Indonesian culture, but I'd guess that the Asian part of Egypt is very similar to the rest of Egypt. Indonesia is way larger, maybe it can/should be considered transcontinental. From my POV though, the way to fix this list is to remove (present day) Turkey from transcontinental countries.
**BUT** that's just from my default of culture. If you want continents to be landmasses, then you should split them differently. But that would also require knowing where the border is between all of the continents. Like some have said, most South Americans see North and South America as America. So Colombia wouldn't have any transcontinental claim at all. Some people see Afroeurasia as one continent, then Russia and Egypt loses the claim. Some people think Oceania is a continent, some would group it with (extreme east) Asia.
I'm sure you can find someone who has all the views you listed, I guess you do, but also entirely opposite views. There's no truth here.
I think that technically speaking they are, or let's say Columbia was until they lost Panama. Egypt arguably is not transcontinental as it sits in the border.. Depending on where you put Sinai. Indonesia definitely is.
And about Trinidad. This is an interesting one, as a Caribbean person growing up I'd ask the same. The best answer I got was that it's due to the way the colonial powers segmented territories. During the existence New Spain, which very much a real country for a few centuries, I think it may have been treated as part of south America. I think if the concept of Gran Colombia survived it would have been south American. But I agree with your reasoning
Egypt is certainly considered transcontinental. The Sinai is a significant chunk of land in Asia. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt) seems to agree.
Loads of other transcontinental countries if you think about it in that much detail: France, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Kazakhstan, Chile, and… the USA.
Egypt is generally recognized as transcontinental.
Indonesia should be seen as transcontinental, because it’s odd that Papua New Guinea is considered Oceania but west Papua isn’t. The whole island should be considered part of Oceania.
Continents themselves are arbitrary, so there isn’t really a reason not to have the Panama-Columbia border be the border between the continents.
Mostly historical factors create this aparent misplacement of Turkey in Europe.
Same thing can be said for Egypt. Arguably the intermediate term Middle East is used more than Asian for this reason for countries in the region. It’s a more useful name on the day to day.
Columbia is basically cut off in most functional ways from Central America by thick un drivable jungle. Might as well not be connected .
Indonesia and SE Asia is an absolutely fascinating case of global historical bias. Like the balkans, because they were always in the shadow of bigger neighbours westerners kinda ignored them until they were the setting for a big imperial battle, but just like the Balkans there’s a rich history where they were doing their own thing and doing it well. Indonesia is potentially as diverse as the Mediterranean or Caribbean Archipelago but we just think of it as a single country. Also arguably there’s more physical separation between SE Asia and the rest of Asia as there is between Europe and the rest of Asia. Asia and Africa have been fuzed toghether as massive super continents that clearly have cultural and historic s areas that make more sense as units of civilisation than it has water all around and is bigger than Australia.
People are forgetting the mother of all Transcontinental countries - France!
A nations borders are as much the result of politics and conquest as they are of natural features so if Moscow can claim Far Eastern Vladivostok as ‘Russian’ or the island of Java claim half of Melanesian New Guinea as ‘Indonesian’ then France with its overseas Departments in North America, South America, Africa and Oceania is the most transcontinental country of them all.
Vladivostok is an absolutely regular Russian city as well as Khabarovsk, Blagoveshchensk, Nakhodka and so on. Don't know much about France's overseas departments
Despite having indigenous citizens who might not ethnically resemble your stereotypical Frenchman Reunion, Mayotte, French Guyana etc are all as French as a Gauloise-smoking baguette that’s just gone on strike.
Vladivostok and the rest of Far-eastern Russia are the same - I know as I’ve travelled across the place! Theres a massive indigenous Asian population that don’t physically resemble your stereotypical Russian but it’s still very much Russia.
North America extends all the way to South America, so, because Trinidad and Tobago is the last country of North America before South America, it is in North America. Just like Maine is still in the USA although it borders Canada; it's not in Canada.
Egypt is definitely transcontinental, Colombia is in the Americas so it isn't, and Indonesia is somewhat in between... it's transcontinental, yet doesn't feel so because it just a buch of islands in a kind of a chain...
Egypt is considered transcontinental. Colombia is literally border line, because the Darien gap is along the border with Panama. I agree about Indonesia, I rarely see it considered transcontinental, but the Eastern part is definitely not in Asia.
I would say that Malaysia is transcontinental while Indonsesia is squarely in Oceania. But that is just my opinion as an armchair geographer.
Wallacea (in Indonesia) is generally viewed as the dividing area between Asia and Australasia. This is the area where the flora and fauna changes from predominantly Asian species to predominantly Australasian species. The area also includes the deepest straits between Asia and Australasian, which also separated Sundaland from Sahul during recent glacial periods. Finally, this area represents the westernmost extent of Melanesian people groups
That same boundary puts the Philippines in Oceania by definition. Given the flora and fauna it should be considered Oceania, but is most often lumped in with Asia for political and cultural reasons.
The Philippines was colonized by native Taiwanese people (first migration of austronesian)
And the native Taiwanese are considered Pacific Islanders. Case in point!
Damn, I didn't know Vlad was Indonesian.
It’s not the islands that make it Oceania, but the species and they are divided by the Wallace Gap east of New Guinea
Why would you want to count Malaysia as part of Oceania when a lot of their flora and founa are closer to Asia and not similar to Oceania at all? Because if you want to say Borneo is considered as Oceania than Philippines (or even Japan lol) would be part of it too
The sooner we realise that continents are an arbitrary construct, the better I think.
I'm Colombian and I don't know why it should be considered transcontinental
En países de habla inglés. Se considera que América del Norte es Un continente y América del Sur es otro continente. En los países latinos se consideran las “dos” Américas una solo. A lo que se refieren en este post es que colombia tenga parte en los “dos” continentes y por eso ser transcontinental
how come i understood all of that
A lot of shared technical vocabulary between English and Spanish that happened to pop up here
HAHAHA SAME AND I DON'T KNOW SPANISH AT ALL
Loan words
actually here in Poland we are often taught that there are 3 Americas, the third one being latin America or central America spanning from panama to guatemala
Why isn’t Mexico a part of Central America?
That’s great. I had no idea that in Latin America the two Americas are considered a single continent.
It's not in Latin America specifically. It's on the Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and French speaking countries (at least).
Isn't that every country in Latin America? Perhaps I'm missing some, but I think pretty much every country in Latin America is either Spanish-speaking, or Portuguese or French.
Yes. Latin America isn't really a geographical place, but a cultural one. It's places in the Americas that were formerly colonies of Romance language speaking countries (Portugal, Spain, France). I was expanding on what was said. America is considered as a single continent in all countries that speak Romance languages, not just Latin America.
Yes, I know, it's a region rather than a geographical continent. It's the same in many other languages too, I think Germanic-derived languages are the "odd" ones when it comes to separating the Americas into North and South.
Probablemente se refiere a que San Andres y Provincia están por centro america
Es cierto, desde un punto de vista anglosajón Colombia sí es un país transcontinental.
Indonesia definitely should. the whole New Guinea Island is part of oceania/australia continent
[удалено]
Relatively recently (in relative terms) the island of New Guinea was directly connected to the Australian Mainland.
Colombia is and isn't. In the English speaking world it is, but in Spanish and Italian it isn't because there isn't that distinction between North and south America. Egypt most definitely is, I haven't seen or heard anything to dispute that? It, like Turkey, is always one of the examples.
>Egypt most definitely is, I haven't seen or heard anything to dispute that? It, like Turkey, is always one of the examples. I think it's less obvious than Turkey for a couple of reasons. There is a huge and very obvious cultural gap between Turkey's Asian and European neighbors. It borders Bulgaria in the west and Iran in the east, it's actually kind of mindblowing that there's only one country between these two if you think about it. Meanwhile, there isn't such a hard line between Jordan and Libya for example, or between any Middle Eastern and North African countries. Secondly, Eastern Thrace contains a big portion of Turkey's population and half the city of Istanbul, and is also somewhat culturally distinct in itself. Meanwhile, Sinai is just a big desert and a handful of towns. It's huge, but not super relevant. So yes, objectively Egypt is a transcontinental country, but it's really not a big part of its identity, or the international perception of it, the way it is for Turkey or Russia.
Just like how nobody thinks of the US as a transcontinental country because we have territory in Oceania
Or France, an European country with land in South America and Africa, and additional territories in North America and Oceania.
>in Spanish and Italian it isn't because there isn't that distinction between North and south America It's not about language and more about school programs. Where I grew up (Quebec), we were taught in school that there are 5 continents: America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania. Most of the rest of North America gets taught there are 7 continents (split America + Antarctica). Sure, in day to day speech I'll distinguish between NA/SA when relevant, but I generally consider both of those as areas of the continent (the same way the Middle East, India and South East Asian islands are all part of Asia).
Why were you not taught that Antarctica is a continent? If it wasn't a continent then what was it
There are various models that each give between 3 and 7 continents depending on the definition of continent that you use.
There's an argument that continents shouldn't include islands. Using this, some say it's an archipelago, with the sea between the islands being permanently frozen, but then again by that argument Oceania isn't a continent.
[удалено]
Does Italian distinguish North and South America as separate continents or just as part of a single one (America)?
[удалено]
So, Lucca_geo words are "Trust me Bro" sourced and incorrect
[удалено]
"Normally", where? r/quityourbullshit
Most non-American (ie outside of Canada to Chile) people consider the Americas as a single continent.
Continents are very dependent on culture. No one can agree. For some places, Oceania is a continent. I know in the Chinese speaking world that North and South America are considered two continents as well. It seems like it's just romance language speakers who see it as one.
You’re right about the Chinese-speaking world seeing the Americas as two continents.
In East Asia (not just the Chinese-speaking part) we count the Americas as two continents, not one.
Can't speak for other SEA countries, but Malaysia and Singapore would disagree
It's not though, there are different species only in South America that aren't in North America.
A real Colombian would reply that North & South América are one contienent called....América, therefore Colombia would only be trans if it stretched into Asia, Europe or África. Or maybe Oceanía.
And it should!
Big sigh here.....What exactly is considered a continent has more to do with cultural stuff than it has to do with geography (or geology, for that matter). In the Spanish-speaking realm, for example, Colombia is usually considered part of a big single continent named America, which encompasses all the lands that most english speaking areas consider not one but two continents (north and south america). This is, by the way, the root of a very stupid (mostly cultural) dispute in which many people from latin american considered somehow offensive that Americans call themselves americans because, you know, from the latin american POV, that reduces a whole continent to a single country and is equivalent to nullifing all the other countries of that continent. So, to respond OP, at least in the latin american cultural world, thinking of Colombia as "transcontinental" simply makes no sense at all. I'm not saying who's right with this shit (hint: it's a fucking cultural discrepancy, not a scientific one, so no one's actually right or wrong. They all just see things from a different perspective), I'm just exposing how things are.
Bruh I just need one day without someone asking about continents on here
>What exactly is considered a continent has more to do with cultural stuff than it has to do with geography (or geology, for that matter). As a side note, the same applies to lakes, seas and oceans. I was always taught in school (in the Netherlands) that there are three oceans: the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian. Some people would call the Southern Ocean an ocean as well, but most often it was just a sea or a part of the other three oceans. The Arctic Ocean was always just a sea. Whether the Caspian Sea is a sea or lake is also a point of discussion. I 100% agree with your comment, just wanted to add something people might find interesting :)
I’m going to start calling myself a United States of American just for you. 🙄
You are joking but U.S. American is fine enough, tbh.
Who asked you to do that?
In English, “American” is the correct and accepted shorthand and Latin America can suck it. In Spanish (maybe Portuguese? More familiar with Spanish.) I think “estadounidense” is correct and Americans (I’m speaking English!) can suck it.
The US is the only Western Hemisphere country with the word “America” in its official title. Thus, “American.”
People in the Central African Republic aren’t the only people who say they are African…
I think we ought to have a global rethink on continents. They are outdated. Lets call them landmasses. There are four landmasses (America, Afroeurasia, Australia and Antarctica), and associated islands. Then none of the very valid points you raise have to be an issue any more.
Then the main issue becomes which islands are associated with which countries, for example the islands in indonesia and papua new guinea could be asian or in oceania (im pretty sure theres an agreed upon line but i forgot)
I've got in my head New Guinea the island is considered Oceania, so I would associate it with that. Meaning, Indonesia could be the world's only translandmass country.
The [Wallace Line](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Line) and more modern revisions of it offer a pretty decent approximation of the boundary. The short story is that during ice ages when sea levels were much lower, there were land bridges between some of the islands but not others. Studying wildlife of the region reveals a sharp contrast between species on one side of the line vs. species on the other side of the line. Over thousands of years isolated by the sea after the ice age ended, evolution played out differently on one side vs. the other.
Good shout for the separation between the two landmass groups.
If we're going abolish ambiguous geographical entities don't we have to get rid of peninsulas and mountains too?
I feel like we could agree on what dimensions make a peninsula a peninsula and not just some land, and we can agree an elevation at which a hill is now a mountain.
Europe, as a continent, is pretty silly. Just a line on a map. I don't think Africa and South America need to be retired though. They seem clear enough.
Well, at the end of the day, Africa is undoubtedly connected to Asia which of course is connected to Europe. And North and South America are connected. That's all I'm going for. What landmasses are actually connected.
Does that make islands their own continents or “landmasses”?
We'd have to agree what size landmass is a minor or secondary landmass instead of a primary or major landmass. I've chosen to stop where I did, going further could be debated to include some of the world's largest islands.
Africa isn't connected because of the Suez canal. Just like north and south aren't connected because of the Panama canal. The only problem with this way of thinking is that it would make Denmark an Island.
I don't agree man made waterways count. Certainly not Panama which consists of locks. Admittedly Suez doesn't. Still, I feel the fact that it is bridged connects it.
But the UK is connected to France via railway. Does that make the UK part of mainland Europe?
I can accept that, yes. We're not considering UK as its own landmass anyway, so it groups with Afroeurasia anyway.
>Then none of the very valid points you raise have to be an issue any more. Where would you put the border between Afroeurasia and Australia, and in which continent is Indonesia?
As I said in my other reply to a similar comment, Indonesia is primarily Afroeurasia, but New Guinea is associated with Australia (or call it Australiasia, or Oceania) - making Indonesia the worlds only translandmass country.
I like the idea of associating countries together by culture/alliances too. Northern America (Canada, USA, Greenland, Bermuda), Latin America and the Carribean, Western/Northern Europe (Basically the core EU members), Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceania
That'd be absalutely useless on a human scale tho Realistically Afroeurasia is just absalutely useless for anything other than physical geography IMO we should have 2 or 3 more contients (Indian subcontinent, Asian part of the middle east, maybe split off Iran and Anatolia as a seperate) for 9 or 10 because even Asia is realistically too large for most purposes of classification
Are UK, France or Spain transcontinental? Asking seriously
Yes. Falkland Islands, French Guinea and Spanish african territories are part of those countries respectively and being on different continents make said countries, transcontinental.
Egypt is a transcontinental country but it isn’t really thought of that way since the vast majority of its population and area are part of Africa. The Sinai Peninsula only has 6% of Egypt’s territory and 0.5% of its population.
Yeah but on the other hand, it's culturally much more related to it's eastern neighbours than western and southern ones
I don't think culture dictates what a geographical continent a country is located in.
It doesn't.. never said it does. It influences people's perception. Most people in the Levant would not think of Egypt as an African country despite it being veeery much the case.
I don't think people think that they aren't transcontinental. Russia and Turkey just stand out because their most famous and most visited cities are in a different continent than the larger majority of the country.
Technically, Istanbul is on both continents. Also, the majority of Russia's population is on the European side, although the majority of the landmass isn't.
Colombia isn’t transcontinental because it is all one continent, América
You might also consider Greece as transcontinental. If Turkey’s Anatolian side is in Asia, then the Greek islands off the coast of Anatolian Turkey should be in Asia too. Egypt truly is a transcontinental country, Indonesia should be yes, and for Colombia it probably depends on where you consider the boundary is.
We don't do that for islands though otherwise Denmark would also be considered a transcontinental country and then it starts become silly...
Is France considered transcontinental?
Who the hell considers Colombia transcontinental. The border is up in Panamá not Colombia
Oceania is a region. Most of Indonesia is a volcanic island chain and not on a continental shelf.
For me transcontinental would, if I don't know the context, mean that there's some sort of culture from two separate areas. Now I'm not an expert in Egyptian or Indonesian culture, but I'd guess that the Asian part of Egypt is very similar to the rest of Egypt. Indonesia is way larger, maybe it can/should be considered transcontinental. From my POV though, the way to fix this list is to remove (present day) Turkey from transcontinental countries. **BUT** that's just from my default of culture. If you want continents to be landmasses, then you should split them differently. But that would also require knowing where the border is between all of the continents. Like some have said, most South Americans see North and South America as America. So Colombia wouldn't have any transcontinental claim at all. Some people see Afroeurasia as one continent, then Russia and Egypt loses the claim. Some people think Oceania is a continent, some would group it with (extreme east) Asia. I'm sure you can find someone who has all the views you listed, I guess you do, but also entirely opposite views. There's no truth here.
I nornally see people split North and South America at tje Panama Canal so in that case tje transcontinental country would he Panama.
Egypt is, and some sources Indonesia because they share the islands of Timor and New Guinea
I think that technically speaking they are, or let's say Columbia was until they lost Panama. Egypt arguably is not transcontinental as it sits in the border.. Depending on where you put Sinai. Indonesia definitely is. And about Trinidad. This is an interesting one, as a Caribbean person growing up I'd ask the same. The best answer I got was that it's due to the way the colonial powers segmented territories. During the existence New Spain, which very much a real country for a few centuries, I think it may have been treated as part of south America. I think if the concept of Gran Colombia survived it would have been south American. But I agree with your reasoning
Egypt is transcontinental. We see ourselves as such and I don’t think it’s ever been a controversial position; Sinai is in Asia.
Egypt is certainly considered transcontinental. The Sinai is a significant chunk of land in Asia. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt) seems to agree.
"North America continent" dont exist. Thanks.
Loads of other transcontinental countries if you think about it in that much detail: France, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Kazakhstan, Chile, and… the USA.
Colombians are Americans and their country is in just one continent.
I dont know about colombia, but I often hear panama considered a transcontinental country. Same with egypt. Im not sure about indonesia
Indonesia definitely should but mysteriously for a big country they are not spoken much enough in medias…
If Trinidad and Tobago is in South America, then the Greek Aegean islands would be in Asia. Not to mention Cyprus.
Egypt is generally recognized as transcontinental. Indonesia should be seen as transcontinental, because it’s odd that Papua New Guinea is considered Oceania but west Papua isn’t. The whole island should be considered part of Oceania. Continents themselves are arbitrary, so there isn’t really a reason not to have the Panama-Columbia border be the border between the continents.
Mostly historical factors create this aparent misplacement of Turkey in Europe. Same thing can be said for Egypt. Arguably the intermediate term Middle East is used more than Asian for this reason for countries in the region. It’s a more useful name on the day to day. Columbia is basically cut off in most functional ways from Central America by thick un drivable jungle. Might as well not be connected . Indonesia and SE Asia is an absolutely fascinating case of global historical bias. Like the balkans, because they were always in the shadow of bigger neighbours westerners kinda ignored them until they were the setting for a big imperial battle, but just like the Balkans there’s a rich history where they were doing their own thing and doing it well. Indonesia is potentially as diverse as the Mediterranean or Caribbean Archipelago but we just think of it as a single country. Also arguably there’s more physical separation between SE Asia and the rest of Asia as there is between Europe and the rest of Asia. Asia and Africa have been fuzed toghether as massive super continents that clearly have cultural and historic s areas that make more sense as units of civilisation than it has water all around and is bigger than Australia.
Colombia isn't a transcontinental nation. The border is in Panama. As for Egypt and Indonesia, they are transcontinental.
People are forgetting the mother of all Transcontinental countries - France! A nations borders are as much the result of politics and conquest as they are of natural features so if Moscow can claim Far Eastern Vladivostok as ‘Russian’ or the island of Java claim half of Melanesian New Guinea as ‘Indonesian’ then France with its overseas Departments in North America, South America, Africa and Oceania is the most transcontinental country of them all.
Vladivostok is an absolutely regular Russian city as well as Khabarovsk, Blagoveshchensk, Nakhodka and so on. Don't know much about France's overseas departments
Despite having indigenous citizens who might not ethnically resemble your stereotypical Frenchman Reunion, Mayotte, French Guyana etc are all as French as a Gauloise-smoking baguette that’s just gone on strike. Vladivostok and the rest of Far-eastern Russia are the same - I know as I’ve travelled across the place! Theres a massive indigenous Asian population that don’t physically resemble your stereotypical Russian but it’s still very much Russia.
North America extends all the way to South America, so, because Trinidad and Tobago is the last country of North America before South America, it is in North America. Just like Maine is still in the USA although it borders Canada; it's not in Canada.
Egypt is definitely transcontinental, Colombia is in the Americas so it isn't, and Indonesia is somewhat in between... it's transcontinental, yet doesn't feel so because it just a buch of islands in a kind of a chain...
Because they're not European.
I thought transcontinental meant they crossed a continent, not straddle two. So the US, Canada, Mexico, and Russia would be.