At 13:13 -0400 2000-09-12, Gwillim Law wrote:
I looked in a few handy reference books. In Merriam Webster's Geographical Dictionary, Third Edition (1997), under "Asia", I found: "Boundaries: ... (4) On W, Red Sea, Isthmus of Suez, ...; chief island Cyprus." Cyprus is not mentioned in the "Europe" article. Rand McNally's Atlas of the World, Millenium Edition (1999) has Cyprus colored in on the political map of Asia, but not of Europe. The National Geographic Atlas of the World and the Encyclopedia Britannica World Atlas both have lists of countries organized by continent. In both of them, Cyprus is listed in Asia, not Europe. The Columbia Encyclopedia's article on Asia says, "The conventional boundary with Europe--which may be said geographically to be a peninsula of the Eurasian land mass--lies approximately along the Ural mts., the Ural river, and the Caspian Sea. Thus defined, Asia, including Ceylon but excluding the islands of Japan, ...". I didn't find any reference books that place Ceylon in Europe.
I note that _all_ of the references cited are US publications. --Alex _______________ Alex LIVINGSTON Macintosh and Lotus Notes Support / Information Technology (IT) Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) UNSW SYDNEY NSW 2052 / Australia Facsimile: +61 2 9931-9349 / Telephone: +61 2 9931-9264 Time : UTC+11---[last Mar. Sun.---UTC+10---[last Aug. Sun.---UTC+11--- At end of today, Wednesday, September 13, time since epoch (1-1-1 at 00:00:00) = 730376 days = 1999.70156814 average Gregorian years time until 3rd millennium, 21st century, 201st decade, 2001st year = 109 days = .29843186 average Gregorian years