The area was once part of the subtropical and temperate regions of the southern supercontinent Gondwana in the Mesozoic era, a more or less continuous landmass consisting of what is now modern South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea.

Physiographically, it is the northwestern peninsula of the larger landmass known as Eurasia (or Afro-Eurasia); Asia occupies the eastern bulk of this continuous landmass and all share a common continental shelf.

This map showed Europe, not just the EU, as one continuous landmass, however Cyprus was moved west as the map cut off after the Bosporus (which was seen as excluding Turkey for political reasons).

Having said that the geo-scientific definition of a continent (large continuous landmass) would give us only 5 continents, of which Australia the country could be said to be one Lesson over ;o

For most of the time since then, Australia-New Guinea remained a continuous landmass.

In time, however, the two merged into one continuous landmass.

Afro-Eurasia-America is a continuous landmass that exists during periods of low sea level induced by ice ages, and comprises about 85% of the Earth's land area when present in the current era.

There are currently four major continuous landmasses of the Earth - Afro-eurasia, Americas, Australia and Antarctica.

Likewise, the ideal criterion that each be a continuous landmass is often disregarded by the inclusion of the continental shelf and oceanic islands, and contradicted by classifying North and South America as two continents; and/or Eurasia and Africa as two continents, with no natural separation by water.

Geographically, Asia is the major eastern constituent of the continent of Eurasia with Europe being a northwestern peninsula of the landmass - or of Afro-Eurasia; geologically, Asia, Europe and Africa make up a single continuous landmass (except for the Suez Canal) and share a common continental shelf.