Started an argument with my much smarter wife because she said North and South America are not two separate continents. She was right, because continents are only defined by convention.
Regardless of which definition you go with, someone saying North and South America are one continent but Europe and Asia are two separate continents are at the very least being inconsistent
There isn’t really a natural barrier between North and South America, though. Asia has the Urals.
North and South America have the Darién Mountains/Darién Gap
The Urals don’t even stretch all the way across the continental boundary
Again: inconsistent.
Hmmm… You’re right. It does feel a lot more arbitrary when you put it that way.
Shall we make California its own continent because of the Rockies?
They’d have to post a sign at the border warning that continents and mountains may cause cancer…
Okay, that was actually pretty funny
You know what? You actually do have a point.
The borders between Europe and Asia are absolutely arbitrary and the border between Asia and Africa is the Suez Canal
It’s not entirely arbitrary, it’s just based on racism.
Iirc its actually based on some guy assuming a river was a cannal and using it as a geographical border and no one really checking until the border had stuck.
I remember always questioning that one as a kid. The answer I always got was something about mountains. For some reason, I think the true history, like a lot of arbitrary divisions is probably ✨racism✨
There’s two definitions in my language. One for land mass continent (eurasia) and the other is more of a geopolitical continent if that makes sense (europe, asia)
I think English needs the same.
Yes, I personally love 4 continents. Americas, Afro-Eurasia, Oceania, Antarctica
If you’re gonna group them like that, there’s no Americas, it’s America.
I think people write Americas because when just writing America too many people assume the US.
Yeah, I’m just being pedantic.
Technically correct. Which is best kind of correct.
Make cents
I don’t accept the grouping of Africa and Eurasia as one
And New Zealand is its own continent! I like that definition
I’m not sure New Zealand is real. It’s not on my maps.
Oh, it’s real. I’ve been there. Beautiful place.
Maybe you need newer maps?
Whoosh :(
I’m of the unpopular opinion that India/Pakistan should be its own continent and New Zealand should be different continent then Australia. Both because they are different techtonic plates.
Removed by mod
It’s all one connected landmass (at least, until man-made channels), so it fits
It’s hard to have a strict definition when there are only 4-12 of them. We didn’t have a strict definition of planets until less than 20 years ago.
Italy is a part of Africa. At least, geologically.
You’re wife is right because they are the same landmass. We separate Europe and Africa from Asia due to racism.
We separate Europe, Asia, and Africa because the Ancient Greeks invented the boundaries and terms, and the Romans kept them up.
They lived in the area, so for them, these boundaries were just names given to land on either side of major bodies of water: the Nile, the Black Sea and Rioni river, and the Mediterranean.
They considered Egypt part of Asia for a while, and anything south of the Med as the landmass “Libya.” The Romans kept up the same definitions as maps expanded, and just extrapolated from there.
Eh, they’re all just big and bigger islands, because every land mass is surrounded by water.
Yeah. People in the US learn about 7 continents at school. In France, we learn about the 5 continents.
What seven, America is two and Europe/Asia is counted twice also? I’m from elsewhere and also learned 5
American here.
- North America
- South America
- Europe
- Asia
- Africa
- Australia (and Oceania)
- Antarctica
N’importe quoi, y a la chocolatine du nord et la chocolatine du sud, ça fait 6, retourne à ton école pourrave à Paimpont (j’ai rien contre Paimpont, c’est très pimpant).
I hope that’s really the gibberish my browser’s translate function tells me it is
It’s very logical.
There’s north chocolatine (basically hillbilly way to say pain au chocolat) and south chocolatine, which according to the above commenter of extremely high IQ, means there as 6 continents instead of five.
commenter of extremely high IQ
WTF did you just call me?? Imma shank you
Maybe some of it is literal word for word translation vs accounting for grammatical differences but …
Anything, there’s northern chocolate and southern chocolate, it’s 6, go back to your school in Paimpont (I have nothing against Paimpont, it’s very pimpant).
Paimpont est réputée pour son école de pompiers.
I remember many years ago I was playing WoW and the conversation in guild chat was about continents so I said that in my country America is a single continent. That moment an American in guild flipped the fuck out and got really mad at me even suggesting that his great country could be in the same continent as mine (Brazil) going as far as saying “that’s so fucking dumb, next you will say Europe and Asia are the same continent?!” which is funny cause eurasia is a thing, what a dumbass.
A friend of mine went from a school in the US to a French school, and when she said there were 7 continents, everyone including the teacher made fun of her.
Dogmatism goes both ways.
Mexico is in North America, but try telling that the common trump supporting gringo.
I remember when central America was a thing.
Edit: Apparently even considering the existence of Central America Mexico is still North America
North America is entirely defined by the NAFTA. Geography is mostly political.
AFAIK, Cuba is on the North American tectonic plate as well…
Yes, but they technically count as “the Caribbean”
Geology doesn’t care about your feelings.
Or anything else, really.
But it does care where we draw the line!
Personally a great fan of the CGP Grey videos. Continents in this case: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34
Love their videos
There is a useful way to do it: By looking at Tectonic Plates and their boundaries.
I mean, it useful to geologists. Not so much to economists or sociologists.
According to the image on Wikipedia depicting the plates, there would then be 17 continents, although some of those 17 would be entirely ocean, or only small islands
I’m really surprised this is the first time I’ve seen Africa as two continents. The Great Rift Valley is well known but I just hadn’t heard going the next logical step
The Red Sea is actually just another rift valley along the same edge of the plate. It just filled in with water first.
These are not continents. The image is more of an illustration of why tectonic plates are not a good way to redefine continents not be arbitrary.
That map is pure chaotic good vibes.
Half of Japan would be North American? I didn’t expect that.
Lots of island chains are actually mountain chains partially hidden underwater. And mountain chains usually appear where two tectonic plates ram into one another, causing one of them to bunch up.
They do like to play baseball.
And then India is no longer in Eurasia. Or you could say that Los Angeles is not in North America.
Los Angeles is not in North America
I don’t see a problem with that.
Plus, by tectonic plates, isn’t it America, since N/C/S America are on the same plate, right? (I don’t trust my memory of school from decades ago).
India is usually considered a subcontinent. West Coast is a geologic mess until resolved.
