Which continent has seen the most war?

[liamkisters]

I say europe because we had wars even before history !

[Arbitrary Crusader]

six year nerco.....I'm impressed.

OT I said Antarctica

[liamkisters]

Let's list big wars by continent that I can think of.

Europe-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...icts_in_Europe

Asia-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Asia

Africa-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...icts_in_Africa

Australia-
??

North America-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._North_America

South America-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._South_America

not to say that you are stupid or anything but i will change your list its just to big so click the link and you can see what i mean

[Mr. Scott]

Europe. Simply due to geography Europe developed a massive arsenal of very distinct cultures. So this of course leads to friction that results in war.

[Azog 150]

I think its probably got to be Europe. Even if the frequency of wars hasn't been as much as some other continents, I think the death tolls have been higher. More people over a smaller area then other continents, coupled with loads of competing factions over that small area and things are going to get bloody.

However, othe continents (Mainly Asia and Africa) have had their fair share of big and bloody wars so its hard to say. Many of histories bloodiest wars have been fought in China, and Africa has been in a state of constant conflict since the Dawn of Time- its just that in Africa war has tended to be on a smaller scale.

[Watchman]

Bollocks. Anyways, Europe and Asia ought to be folded under the heading of "Eurasia" (which incidentally should also include Mediterranean Africa, which for the most part had very little to do with sub-Saharan Africa and lots of saber-rattling with others around the lake) - assorted Central Asian warring in particular quite often tended to end up coming to roost on Europe's doorstep for one reason or another. And Europeans occasionally got into traveling mood and went East to spread the love too.

And Eurasia, defined as above, beats the rest of the world hands down when it comes to sheer volume of organised mass violence. Titular "original gangsters" being the first city-states of Mesopotamia...

[Valiant Champion]

pangaea after that my next choice would be Atlantis. So much warfare on Atlantis that it sunk under the ocean.

[Ancient Aliens]

Whatever continent the Middle East is (North Africa, South Eastern Europe, and Western Asia).

[Anarius]

There are many wars going on in Africa to this day. Europe has been peaceful for the most part since the second world war. Not to mention how it's the birthplace of mankind. Egypt and Carthage was there too. I'll go with Africa.

[Claudius Gothicus]

From a comparatively point of view(taking into account size, population and death toll) I gotta go with Europe.

[Gatsby]

Europe: Dense population, many different cultures and rapid advances in military technology mean lots of very bloody wars.

[Asterix]

I would say Asia. I think the whole "Europe is the bloodiest continent ever" idea stems from the fact that European history is by far the most well-known and studied. I believe it is something of a myth that Europe is more violent than others, with the exception of the 20th century. Even then, however, Asia had some incredibly bloody times that are on par with Europe: WWII, Mao, and the partition of India. Earlier in history, you have the An Lushan Rebellion in China, Qing Dynasty's Conquest of the Mings, The Mongols, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._by_death_toll
you will notice that Europe does not appear as often as one might think. Wikipedia may not be so reliable, but you get the picture.
Asia also encompasses a huge portion of the Earth, so it only makes sense that it has a lot of war.

Africa is also shockingly bloody, especially since they got guns. Congo, anyone?

[Blaze86420]

The last two centuries probably offset it in Europe's favor, but otherwise its Asia for it's sheer size if anything.

[Mannstein]

How are we defining this? By numbers of people killed? Most different wars? Highest percentage of people affected?

If it's by the most people killed I would say Asia. Some of the revolts in China involved just stupid numbers of people. And that's just China, there's also India, the Middle East, SE Asia...

If it's by the most population affected, I would say Europe. When there's a big war, every single country seems to get involved.

[saglam2000]

asia

[Blaze86420]

Europe. Simply due to geography Europe developed a massive arsenal of very distinct cultures. So this of course leads to friction that results in war.

Err, no? Have you thought maybe this isn't restricted to Europe? Asia is much more diverse.

[Mr. Scott]

Err, no? Have you thought maybe this isn't restricted to Europe? Asia is much more diverse.

No its not.
I'm of korean descent and I can tell you that korean culture (non-modern) is very similar to Chinese culture. I mean, for a very significant time, Korea was considered to simply be a fringe kingdom of China. That was until the battle of salsu .

Japanese is very similar to Korean/Chinese too.

Siamese is very distinct, but due to the heavy jungle it has very few opportunities to heavily interact with Asia or India.

Then look at Europe. I can assure you that Celtic culture is very very different from Roman culture which is very different from Phoenician culture.
And the geographical barriers are large enough to create numerous sub-cultures, but not so enormous as to completely isolate them (compare that to the Gobi Desert, Himalayas, Dense Jungles of Indochina). Therefore, you get tension by that exposure among diverse cultures.

Also, on another note, Europe/Mediterranean has many very zealous religions that the East lacked. Where as in the West religion was a central focus of life, in the East it usually was just a code to live by.

[Watchman]

FYI Phoenicians are Middle Easterners (Semitic, actually) and aside from a few trading posts along the Mediterranean coasts never had much of a presence in Europe, save perhaps for Carthage's brief Iberian empire. Anyways most European cultures are/were actually pretty closely related - Roman and Celtic for example trace back to much the same Late Bronze Age ancestry - and cheerfully loaned bits and pieces between themselves. This is wholly irrelevant as regards Europeans' gleeful warring amongst themselves (eg. the Celts and Germanics fought amongst themselves *far* more than either ever did with the Romans or Greeks, or even each other - similarly the Classical Greeks mostly fought each other), which stems from *political* fragmentation (which in turn is partly due to the aforementioned geographical barriers) - with no "overlord" to keep order, every jack with a sword and an excess of ambition (or plain greed) could readily try to make like Conan.

'Course, while the Middle East tended to have more in the way of about-unified empires *those* then had any amount of non-stop trouble from barbarians at the borders (including the desert nomadsand mountain dwellers right next to their heartlands), rebelling provinces and over-ambitious governors and viceroys trying for a coup...

[cenkiss]

Asia.European conflicts have always been smaller than asian ones until later centuries.

[Watchman]

Asia.European conflicts have always been smaller than asian ones until later centuries.

That would mostly be due to on the average far smaller political entities, which obviously couldn't mobilise *nearly* as impressive armies as huge-ass empires. (Europe is arguably geographically vaccinated against such.) And demographics. But it could be argued that what Europeans lacked in major campaigns and vast armies they at least made up for in incessant vicious little squabbles with smaller forces. It wasn't until rather recently that fairly literally a year wouldn't go by without someone somewhere (and more commonly, several someones in different places) going at it with gusto...

'Course Asia is also HUGE and diverse; tribal fighting in the mountains or large-scale rustling on the steppes is something very different indeed than China or Persia raising the war flag and setting the imperial armies on the move... and India frankly deserves its own entry just as much as Europe does.