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The Earth's
land masses are divided into 7 large landmasses called continents.
They are generally identified by convention rather than any strict
criteria, with seven regions commonly regarded as continents.
Continents are understood to
be large, continuous, discrete masses of land, ideally separated by
expanses of water." Many of the seven most commonly recognized
continents identified by convention are not discrete landmasses
separated by water. The criterion 'large' leads to arbitrary
classification: Greenland, with a surface area of 2,166,086 square
kilometers (836,330 sq mi) is considered the world's largest island,
while Australia, at 7,617,930 square kilometers (2,941,300 sq mi) is
deemed to be a continent. Likewise, the ideal criterion that each be a
continuous landmass is often disregarded by the inclusion of the
continental shelf and oceanic islands, and contradicted by classifying
North and South America as one continent; and/or Asia, Europe and Africa
as one continent, with no natural separation by water. This anomaly
reaches its extreme if the continuous land mass of Europe and Asia is
considered to constitute two continents. The Earth's major landmasses
are washed upon by a single, continuous World Ocean, which is divided
into a number of principal oceanic components by the continents and
various geographic criteria.
There
are also a group of islands in the Pacific ocean which geographers refer
to as Oceania. (Oceania is not a continent.)
Continents constitute about one-third of the earth's
surface.
There are seven continents on Earth: |
