Take for example, the vast country of Russia, 6.6 million square miles (17 million square kilometers). Certain factors make a landmass more or less likely to be called a continent at various times in history, by various people, but nothing can be said to determine continentality in a completely principled, nonarbitrary way." "A bit of an overstatement but mostly valid. "Nothing, really, determines a continent, except historical convention," says Dan Montello, a geography professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, via email. Heck, as recently as the 1800s, some people says there were just two continents, the Old - including Europe, Africa and Asia - and the New, which encompassed North and South America. (That's why there are five rings on the Olympic flag.) And some experts think four is the way to go, using as their criteria landmasses naturally separated by water, rather than manmade canals (AfroEurasia, America, Antarctica and Australia). There's even a five-continent model, which lists Africa, Europe, Asia, America and Oceania/Australia. For example, in Europe, students usually learn that there are actually only six continents: Africa, America, Antarctica, Asia, Australia/ Oceania, and Europe. Going by that standard, continents make up the vast majority of land surface area on the planet, or about 57 million square miles (148 million square kilometers).īut that's hardly the last word on the matter.
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