Europe and North America
Europe and North America are separated by the North Atlantic. In terms of associating islands with either continent, the boundary is usually drawn between Greenland and Iceland. The Norwegian islands of Jan Mayen and Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean are usually associated with Europe. Iceland and the Azores are protrusions of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and are associated with and peopled from Europe, even though they have areas on the North American Plate. (Definitions of "continents" are a physical and cultural construct dating back centuries, long before the advent or even knowledge of plate tectonics; i.e., defining a "continent" falls into the realm of physical and cultural geography, while continental plate definitions fall under plate tectonics in the realm of geology.)
Read more about this topic: Boundaries Between Continents
Famous quotes containing the words north america, europe, north and/or america:
“The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation; certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it: he cannot grow or mature.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)
“When Paris sneezes, Europe catches cold.”
—Prince Metternich (1773–1859)
“The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“In America they carry latch-keys, and walk about with young gentlemen as young gentlemen walk about with each other.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)