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.
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.
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.
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.
Oceania is the best continent
Always at war with Eastasia.
I remember how many years ago I was playing WoW and the converaation 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.
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!
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.
North and South America I can see either way, but splitting Europe and Asia is insane.
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.
Half of Japan would be North American? I didn’t expect that.
They do like to play baseball.
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.
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 always use the one definition that’s gonna annoy the most amount of people.
It’s always Americas because no one else gives a flying fuck
Are you American, then?
Nope, I’m Africa-Eurasian
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.
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.
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).
Paimpont est réputée pour son école de pompiers.
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).
Love their videos
Personally a great fan of the CGP Grey videos. Continents in this case: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34
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.
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.
Nobody tell her about trees, then.
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.
