Sorry Europe, Australia and Antarctica, there are only Four Continents
December 27, 2014
I’m preparing to teach a new class this spring, Geography of the World Economy. I’m really looking forward to it.
In preparing my syllabus I find myself wanting to be able to share a coherent hierarchy and regional partition of Earth’s surface with my students who, as business majors and future competitors in an increasingly globalized economy, will likely need to be able to refer to various parts of the world to communicate plans and ideas. Unfortunately, I don’t think a coherent system exists. So, as part of my course preparation I will try to contribute some thoughts along the same lines as my regional geography of the US.
The first challenge I want to take on is the definition of a continent. The word “continent” and its use in reference to large land masses comes from the Latin, terra continens, meaning continuous land. The definition is not based upon some sort of size threshold whereby extremely large islands, i.e., a land mass completely surrounded by water, can be considered continents. As such, Antarctica and Australia are enormous islands, not continents. Sorry, mates….and, uh, penguins. It’s just geography, nothing personal.
So we’re left with two enormous, continuous and connected land masses. In the Western Hemisphere we have North America and South America connected by the very narrow Isthmus of Panama. And, in the Eastern Hemisphere, we have Europe and Asia connected to Africa at the very small Sinai Peninsula.
So, just five continents, right? No.
As is often the case, a Euro-centric view of things enabled the establishment of Europe as a separate continent and this precedent has been maintained for historical reasons. But, if you look at a satellite image of the Eastern Hemisphere you may notice that the Ural Mountains, generally considered to be the border between Europe and Asia is not terribly narrow, not at all similar to Panama or Sinai. So, while Europe is certainly a major world region, it is not a continent, nor is Asia for that matter (unless Europe is thought to be a subset of Asia). Instead, we must ignore the illusion of the Isthmus of the Urals and recognize Europe and Asia combine to form the world’s largest continent, Eurasia.
That makes four distinct and continuous land masses. My apologies to your social studies teachers who have been mistakenly dividing the world into six or seven continents. My apologies to Europe, Australia and Antarctica but you’ve been downgraded. Europe is a region. Australia and Antarctica are islands.
There are only four continents: Africa, Eurasia, North America and South America.
Next up, world regions.
15 Comments
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I can’t believe it. This is the most misleading article from a geography teach I haven’t ever seen. The definition of continent is exactly the opposite.
There are really just 4 continents in the world:
Afro-Eurasia
America (North and South combined)
Antartica
Australia
I think this quote says it all: “This is the most misleading article from a geography teach I haven’t ever seen.”
Sorry to hear you didn’t actually see the article.
In my opinion, there would be just three large enough landmasses whose continental crusts are independent
– Euramerafrasia (Europe, America, Africa, Asia, sans Madagascar and Iceland)
Eurasia and Africa are connected by the Sinai peninsula.
Eurasia and America’s continental platforms are connected by the Bering strait, whose depth is never more than mere 49 meters.
Madagascar, Iceland, and lesser islands not laying upon the continental platform do not belong to the continent.
– Sahul (Australia and New Guinea)
Australia and New Guinea are conneccted by the Arafura Sea.
– Antarctica
There are 6 continents:
australia
antarctica
africa
eurasia
south am.
north am.
nope
I believe in only 4 continents. AfroEurasia, the Americas (as a whole), Australia and Antarctica.
Believe what you like, but “continent” = continuous land. That ain’t Australia or Antarctica.
Your argument ignores the fact that the Americas are also a separate landmass. If Australia can’t be considered a continent because it is isolated from other continents then nor can the Americas. Therefore Eurasia/Africa being the biggest continuous continent is the only continent.
If you include the Americas, what’s your justification, their size? You have picked an arbitrary size limit then. What is it based on?
Australia not only has it’s own continental shelf, it has it’s own fricken tectonic plate: https://earthhow.com/7-major-tectonic-plates/ As does Antarctica.
God help your students if you pass of this nonsense as an education.
Oh no! Another blow to the status of my beloved country, Australia. So not only are we a small economy with an even smaller population, now we are just a dirty big island and not even the biggest one. Please don’t tell our Prime Minister. Our past ones love to swan about the world stage pretending we are an important and influential country. That’s why we end up in so many awful wars/conflicts that we shouldn’t be in and most Australians hate. 😀
This is the most scientifically illiterate thing I have read all week. There are 8 lithospheric plates that house individual continental landmasses. Eurasian, North American, Antarctic, South American, Australian, Arabian, and Indian. You should probably take a Geology 101 class, as your understanding of a continental plate (continent) and an island is significantly flawed.
Hi Bryan,
Thanks for your kind words. If you look up the word “continent” you’ll find it doesn’t have its origins in plate tectonics. So your argument is incontinent. See what I did there? 🙂
Cheers,
Justin
I believe there are four continents. America, since I believe that North and South America are connected. Afro-Eurasia. Europe is not a continent, it’s connected to Asia. Eurasia is connected to Africa. Australia, it’s not really connected to another continent. Antarctica, which is kind of an exception since there are no countries on Antarctica.
i know only 4 continets and that is Eurasia, Africa,n.America And S.America.