TIL that there is no strict definition of a continent
TIL that there is no strict definition of a continent
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.
Yeah. People in the US learn about 7 continents at school. In France, we learn about the 5 continents.
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).
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
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.
Personally a great fan of the CGP Grey videos. Continents in this case: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34
Love their videos
The borders between Europe and Asia are absolutely arbitrary and the border between Asia and Africa is the Suez Canal
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✨
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.
There also isn't a strict definition of when a pond becomes a lake
When your mom gets in it
Huh. In my language the difference is that a pond is artificial (generally for farming fish), but apparently that's a fishpond in English and pond can be natural. TIL.
Or when a lake becomes a sea. The Alboran Sea is smaller than Lake Superior. The Caspian Sea is a lake. Everything is made up and nothing is real.
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.
There is a useful way to do it: By looking at Tectonic Plates and their boundaries.
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
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.
I mean, it useful to geologists. Not so much to economists or sociologists.
Yes, I personally love 4 continents. Americas, Afro-Eurasia, Oceania, Antarctica
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.
I try to explain this to people who don't believe south americans call themselves americans.
This becomes even more confusing with the way people commonly talk in English versus Spanish. In English, residents of the United States of America typically refer to themselves as Americans, and in English “American” typically only refers to someone from the USA. In Spanish, it seems residents of the USA are typically called the equivalent of “United Stateser” and “American” refers more generally to someone from the continent, at least in some parts of the Spanish-speaking world. I once had an apparent native Spanish-speaker online argue that was the correct form in English as well and insisted that the official name of the country is United States (Estados Unidos), not United States of America (Estados Unidos de América), and that America never refers to the country in English. They didn’t appreciate when I asked why in international sporting events the Americans’ shirts always say USA and why the supporters chant “U-S-A” all the time.
Languages are weird. If you’re learning a different language and try to insist that the new language behave the same as your native language, you’re going to have a hard time.
The USA isn't the only America nor the only United States. Maybe when the government collapses we can come up with a better name.
North America isn't even the first place to be called America
I try to explain this to people...
You mean US citizens. I've had "Americans" chime in on that as well, when I explained that for people who are not from the US, that "America" is not just the US of A but all of the Americas, and that Americans are not just people from the US either.
Not just US citizens, but specifically the Anglophone world as a whole. I've been to other English-speaking country where citizens of the USA are commonly referred to as "Americans" (when they're not called Yanks) while the continents are called "The Americas".
I also colloquially know that the name of the country in Japanese is simply "America" as well with its citizens just called "America-jin"
The relevant Wikipedia article seems to have some interesting insights as to which major world languages opt for which options, but it doesn't seem to be an overly long list of examples.
Well, smart Americans call themselves Americans too, and dumb Americans call themselves Americans, even Usamericans call themselves Americans ;-)
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.
there's also like 5 definitions of "species". Sometimes what seem like simple concepts are hard to pin down
Not always, I'm simple and easy to pin down.
You were right too, because continents are only defined by convention. And by the convention I was taught, there’s 3 Americas: South, Central, and North.
I just looked up my old geography textbook from 6th grade to double check if I was remembering correctly. And it's yes and no. It was indeed North America, Central America, and South America, but they all were regions of a single continent: America.
Could be I was taught that way too. I don’t have any of my old textbooks though.
In elementary school we were taught that as well, then in middle school we were taught Central America is part of South America, but in high school we were taught Central America is part of North America.
That’s not confusing at all.
And New Zealand is its own continent! I like that definition
Italy is a part of Africa. At least, geologically.
Oceania is the best continent
Always at war with Eastasia.
North and South America I can see either way, but splitting Europe and Asia is insane.
I once tried to find a definition of "subcontinent", but all I found was that its almost solely used for India and sometimes for dividing North and South America into to two American subcontinents.
Eurasia and Oceania sure, quibble all you like that makes sense to me. But combining the Americas and pushing Africa in with Asia makes no sense to me.
Same. I think having a tiny land bridge shouldn't be enough when the idea of a continent is to identify the largest masses of land separated by oceans, especially when disconnected land can still be a part of a contenent.
My list would be:
- North America
- South America
- Eurasia
- Africa
- Oceania
- Antarctica
I can see the combined Americas and Africa combined with Eurasia if the idea is land masses that separate oceans, but oceans are as arbitrary as continents so I don't think that is a useful definition.
Eh, they're all just big and bigger islands, because every land mass is surrounded by water.
Nobody tell her about trees, then.
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.
