Silly Question: Why Aren’t Russians Considered Asians?

So, speaking from a general perception standpoint, Indians are considered Asians because they’re on the Asian sub-continent. Well, at least to non-Americans. Most Americans think Indians are from the Middle East, but that’s another post.

The question is, if Indians are considered Asian, why not Russians? Russia has like 4x the land mass in Asia that India has. Hell, it has roughly the same land mass as China, Japan, Korea and India combined.

But “Russians” are European?

1. Most Russians we see look like Europeans. Maria Sharapova doesn’t strike me as Asian, for example, and neither does Fedor Emelianenko or my dean of CS in college named Boris.

2. Moscow, and other large cities are in the European part.

These make sense, but it just strikes me as weird that the majority of a country’s 1 mass could be in one continent but the people are considered to be from the small part.

Any input from my European or Asian friends?

[ Jun 5, 2008 ]

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