The clearest transcontinental countries are Russia, Turkey, Kazakhstan and Egypt: each has land on both sides of a widely accepted continental boundary. Azerbaijan and Georgia join them if you draw the Europe–Asia line along the crest of the Caucasus, and Indonesia and Panama are sometimes counted too. Countries with far-flung territories, like France, the United States, Spain and Denmark, span several continents in a different way, through islands and overseas regions.
Where the continental lines run
Continents are conventions, not laws, but most geographers draw them like this:
- Europe and Asia: down the Ural Mountains and the Ural River to the Caspian Sea, across the Caucasus to the Black Sea, then through the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles. The Caucasus section is the one people argue about: some use the crest of the Greater Caucasus, others a lowland farther north.
- Africa and Asia: the Isthmus of Suez, where the Suez Canal now runs.
- North and South America: usually the border between Panama and Colombia.
- Asia and Oceania: somewhere among Indonesia's islands. New Guinea sits on the same continental shelf as Australia and is usually grouped with Oceania.
The four clear cases
Russia
The Urals split Russia in two. Most of its land, all of Siberia and the Far East, lies in Asia, while most Russians live in the European part, west of the mountains. Near Yekaterinburg, monuments mark the line where travelers stand with a foot in each continent.
Turkey
About 3% of Turkey is in Europe: East Thrace, the corner west of the Bosporus that borders Greece and Bulgaria. Istanbul sits on both sides of the strait. Its old city and Beyoğlu are in Europe, Kadıköy and Üsküdar in Asia, and a public ferry between them is an intercontinental trip for the price of a bus fare.
Kazakhstan
A strip of western Kazakhstan, west of the Ural River, is in Europe by the usual line. The city of Atyrau sits on both banks of the river, so a walk across a bridge there takes you between continents.
Egypt
The Sinai Peninsula, east of the Suez Canal, is in Asia; the rest of Egypt is in Africa. Sharm el-Sheikh, Dahab and St. Catherine's Monastery below Mount Sinai are all on the Asian side, so a Red Sea diving trip to Sinai is, strictly, a trip to Asia.
The Caucasus, and countries that are European by membership
If the Europe–Asia line follows the crest of the Greater Caucasus, small northern parts of Azerbaijan and Georgia fall in Europe. Armenia lies wholly south of the range, in Asia by geography.
Politics blurs this further. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are all members of the Council of Europe. Cyprus, an island off the coast of Turkey and Syria, is in Asia by geography and in the European Union by membership. None of these is a wrong answer; they're different questions.
The edge cases
- Indonesia. Its provinces on New Guinea, west of Papua New Guinea, lie on the Australian continental shelf and are often counted as Oceania, which makes Indonesia a candidate.
- Panama. With the usual line at the Colombian border, Panama is wholly in North America. Some older definitions used the Panama Canal instead, which would put its eastern part in South America.
- Spain. Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish cities on the North African coast, and the Canary Islands lie off Africa. Spain has land in Africa without any argument about lines.
- Countries with overseas territories. France reaches South America (French Guiana), Africa (Réunion, Mayotte), the Caribbean and the Pacific. The United States reaches Oceania through Hawaii, and Denmark reaches North America through Greenland.
How the lists count them
The UN's 193 and the 250 list count each country once, whichever side you visited. A day in Istanbul's old city and a week in Cappadocia are both just Turkey.
This site's continent pages follow Natural Earth, which puts each country on one continent. Russia is on the Europe page; Turkey, Kazakhstan, the three Caucasus countries and Cyprus are on the Asia page; Egypt is on the Africa page.
The Travelers' Century Club counts both halves where it matters. Its list has Turkey in Europe and Turkey in Asia, Egypt in Africa and Egypt in Asia (Sinai), and Russia and Russia in Asia, plus Kaliningrad on its own. It also lists Ceuta and Melilla apart from Spain, and splits Indonesia into seven island groups, Papua among them. So a ferry ride across the Bosporus is worth two entries on the club's list. More in the Travelers' Century Club and its list of 330.
If you count continents as well as countries, decide which side counts. A traveler who only saw Istanbul's European side has, by geography, not been to Asia, even though this site's continent pages, like many lists, put Turkey in Asia. Globestamp can count by the club's 330 (Pro) as well as by the 193 and the 250, so the same trip can be read either way.