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It gets even worse when you know Europe and Asia are the same continent.
Errh, sort of.
It really depends on your definition of Continent. Most people would argue that Asia is a different continent.
Our accepted definition of what a continent is sucks. Why is Europe considered a continent but India is not? Every argument for Europe being a separate continent applies even better to India.
Europe just wanted to be special and controlled science at the time, change my mind.
I propose we reclassify india as a dwarf continent
the pluto of continents
India is part of the Indian subcontinent which is part of the Eurasian continent. This is the official goelogical definition. Don't listen to uneducated children on the internet.
india has HALF the landmass...seriously...thats not a continent
If we're going based on landmass, shouldn't Russia be its own continent? Russia is almost twice as big as Europe, and it's culturally unique compared to its neighbors.
well it spans two continents...and also it is russia, so.
Yup, but which two depends on how you define "continent." It either spans Europe and Asia if you go by common definitions of continents, or it spans Eurasia and North America if you look at tectonic continental plates.
It has to do with geology. Europe basically swallowed up and mixed in with another continent a long time ago after Pangea broke up
In contrast, the present eastern boundary of Europe partially adheres to the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, which is somewhat arbitrary and inconsistent compared to any clear-cut definition of the term "continent".
The current division of Eurasia into two continents now reflects East-West cultural, linguistic and ethnic differences which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line.
There's really no physical reasoning for it. You can read on in that article for the historical basis if you want (basically, Homer and other Greeks coined it, and it just kind of stuck), but it's really quite arbitrary where scientists actually draw the line.
My bad, should clarify I was referring to this specifically:
In geology, a continent is defined as "one of Earth's major landmasses, including both dry land and continental shelves". The geological continents correspond to seven large areas of continental crust that are found on the tectonic plates, but exclude small continental fragments such as Madagascar that are generally referred to as microcontinents. Continental crust is only known to exist on Earth.
If we're talking about tectonic plates, then:
- Europe is part of Eurasia
- Arabian peninsula, India, and far east Russia aren't part of it, but we'd probably include them as subcontintents
We'd end up with the following continents:
- N. America (technically includes far east Russia) w/ Caribbean subcontinent
- S. America
- Eurasia w/ Indian and Arabian subcontintents
- Africa w/ Somali subcontinent
- Australia
- Antarctica
Honestly, that would be a much more satisfactory definition than the current one, which seems to be "large landmass bigger than Greenland with logical separations when they're too big." What I really don't understand is when people say Europe and Asia are separate, but N. America and S. America are combined, that's logically inconsistent.
I feel like most people actually don't care that much about Continental Boundries to give an Argument either way.
Geologists, scornfully staring at you.
Not sort of. Most people are idiots. There are seven geological continents and here's a list of them:
Africa Antarctica Australia Eurasia North America South America Zealandia
These contain various subcontinents.
What's even weirder is when someone claims Europe is a separate continent from Asia, yet N. America and S. America are the same continent.
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