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How many continents are there?

Travis

Misanthrope of the Mountains
Travis
Joined
Mar 31, 2007
Messages
24,133
Incredibly I got into an argument with someone over the number of continents. It started off as a discussion over where the Olympics should be held in 2020. I said it could be anywhere but South America but this other guy said North America should be off limits too because both are just one continent called "America."

Now I was not really going to take issue with this except that he insisted that, while North and South America are one continent, Europe and Asia are not. And....well he said this was just "self evident common sense."

I said this actually made no sense because from a physical standpoint they should just be one very large continent called Eurasia. I mean North and South America were not even joined until very recently in geologic time and presently are moving so they will separate again. Europe and Asia have been locked together since Pangaea and show no signs of rifting apart again anytime soon.

I proposed a compromise that we'd just consider separate tectonic plates to be continents and just get used to having all sorts of little continents. He said that was not acceptable because then Europe and Asia would, according to some models, still be one continent. He eventually was willing to accept any definition that kept Europe separate.

Wikipedia turned out to be rather useless on this matter. It seems there is no concrete finite criteria for what is and isn't a continent.
 
Travis said:
Incredibly I got into an argument with someone over the number of continents. It started off as a discussion over where the Olympics should be held in 2020. I said it could be anywhere but South America but this other guy said North America should be off limits too because both are just one continent called "America."

Now I was not really going to take issue with this except that he insisted that, while North and South America are one continent, Europe and Asia are not. And....well he said this was just "self evident common sense."

I said this actually made no sense because from a physical standpoint they should just be one very large continent called Eurasia. I mean North and South America were not even joined until very recently in geologic time and presently are moving so they will separate again. Europe and Asia have been locked together since Pangaea and show no signs of rifting apart again anytime soon.

I proposed a compromise that we'd just consider separate tectonic plates to be continents and just get used to having all sorts of little continents. He said that was not acceptable because then Europe and Asia would, according to some models, still be one continent. He eventually was willing to accept any definition that kept Europe separate.

Wikipedia turned out to be rather useless on this matter. It seems there is no concrete finite criteria for what is and isn't a continent.
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Ha! Last oympics I had this same argument with a foreigner. He said the five circles represent the five (habitable) continents.

I was taught there are seven and I stand by that.
 
Seven is the conventional number of continents and for all intents and purposes it works. My question is, was your friend a South American native? When I had traveled to Ecuador the natives all consider themselves American and have a heavy bias towards no division between North and South America. Their convention may not be our convention.
 
Lowpro said:
Seven is the conventional number of continents and for all intents and purposes it works. My question is, was your friend a South American native? When I had traveled to Ecuador the natives all consider themselves American and have a heavy bias towards no division between North and South America. Their convention may not be our convention.
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No, I'm not sure of his nationality as this was on another discussion board. However he seemed to be favoring a model that would allow Madrid or Paris to get the Olympics in 2024 if Istanbul or Doha gets it in 2020.
 
Lowpro said:
Seven is the conventional number of continents and for all intents and purposes it works. My question is, was your friend a South American native? When I had traveled to Ecuador the natives all consider themselves American and have a heavy bias towards no division between North and South America. Their convention may not be our convention.
Click to expand...

Seven is not a convention shared by everybody, and really define if you are speaking of political definition or actual continental plate.

To quote wiki :

The seven-continent model is usually taught in China, India and most English-speaking countries.
The six-continent combined-Eurasia model is sometimes preferred in the former states of the USSR[citation needed] and Japan[citation needed].
The six-continent combined-America model is taught in Latin America[citation needed] and in some parts of Europe including Greece (equivalent 5 inhabited continents model (i.e. excluding Antarctica) still also found in texts),[20] Portugal[citation needed] and Spain[citation needed].

Using this latter model as a starting point, the Olympics use only inhabited continents (excluding Antarctica) and thus a five-continent model[21][22] as depicted in the Olympic logo.[23]
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ETA: in fact I was taught there are 5 continents.

ETAETA : and here are they :
America, Antarctica, Africa, Eurasia, Australia.

And if you count with a model of plate tectonic rather than politic, the number jump probably up to 8 or even 9.
 
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Travis said:
Incredibly I got into an argument with someone over the number of continents. It started off as a discussion over where the Olympics should be held in 2020. I said it could be anywhere but South America but this other guy said North America should be off limits too because both are just one continent called "America."

Now I was not really going to take issue with this except that he insisted that, while North and South America are one continent, Europe and Asia are not. And....well he said this was just "self evident common sense."
Click to expand...

It's 7 by convention only, but applying his concept of "common sense" destroys his own argument. So I can't understand his pov at all.

And until the Suez canal Africa was contiguous with Asia/Europe, leaving us with only 4 ;) (which raises the knotty issue of whether digging a canal truly separates land masses. Is the Greek Peloponnese an island because of the Corinth canal? Is the S of England an island just because you can navigate entirely by water between the Thames and the Severn estuaries? )
 
Travis said:
Now I was not really going to take issue with this except that he insisted that, while North and South America are one continent, Europe and Asia are not. And....well he said this was just "self evident common sense."
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I've heard that kind of statement on British TV..I think it was Sky News.

My opinion is that he's an idiot.
 
Afro-Eurasia, America, Antarctica, Australia (including New Guinea), Zealandia. How's that sound.
 
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GlennB said:
It's 7 by convention only, but applying his concept of "common sense" destroys his own argument. So I can't understand his pov at all.

And until the Suez canal Africa was contiguous with Asia/Europe, leaving us with only 4 ;) (which raises the knotty issue of whether digging a canal truly separates land masses. Is the Greek Peloponnese an island because of the Corinth canal? Is the S of England an island just because you can navigate entirely by water between the Thames and the Severn estuaries? )
Click to expand...

Good point here. Any argument that says that Africa is a separate continent from Asia/Europe I can use to say that North and South America are two continents. Both are large land masses separated by a narrow piece of land that has been divided by a canal.

At several times there was no sea between Spain and Africa. During those times would Africa be on the same continent as Asia / Europe? If you define a continent by what plate it is on then India is part of Australia and not Asia!


Edit. Just watched the video in this post
BowlOfRed said:
I enjoyed this.

Click to expand...
. It contains all the answers. End of thread.
 
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There's clearly six, Risk says so.
Actually, I was brought up being told there was Antarctica too. So there are clearly seven. There is no reason for this but it is clearly true.
 
I guess a big part of the problem is the elastic nature of how we use the word and associated terms. For example when someone says "over in Europe" are they referring to something that happened on a mass of land vaguely defined as "Europe" or within one of the cultures generally associated with Western Europe?
 
This is interesting:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_do_the_Olympic_rings_represent

[snip]
The five interlocking rings represent the five continents brought together by the Olympic Movement, or the five main regions: Africa, the Americas (North and South America are combined), Asia, Europe and Oceania. As it says in the Olympic Charter, the five-ringed symbol "represents the union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world at the Olympic Games." The symbol of the Olympic Games is composed of five interlocking rings, colored blue, yellow, black, green, and red on a white field. The colors of the rings represent the flags of the countries that participate in the Olympics. Every flag of a country participating in the Olympics includes one of those colors.
[/snip]
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In other words: They only count the continents with, you know, actual people on them....
 
I know a number of Swiss and German* individuals - they'd have been educated in the 60s or early 70s by their ages - who will count North and South America as one continent. In fact, there is a very famous forwarder, Panalpina, who for years had as their slogan "Five Continents - One Forwarder". And these guys were busy and owned their own offices - many many of them - on the six habitable continents. About a decade ago they must've decide to go with the more common approach and changed the slogan to "Six Continents - One Forwarder".

*Not singling them out for any other reason than that my industry was dominated by Swiss and German companies.
 
I'd argue that we have 2 supercontinents

The Americas
Eurasia/Africa

6 major continents

North America
South America
Africa
Eurasia
Australia
Antartica

And several subcontinents, including but not necessarily limited to:

Europe
India
The Middle East
Greenland
 
Aepervius said:
Seven is not a convention shared by everybody, and really define if you are speaking of political definition or actual continental plate.

To quote wiki :



ETA: in fact I was taught there are 5 continents.

ETAETA : and here are they :
America, Antarctica, Africa, Eurasia, Australia.

And if you count with a model of plate tectonic rather than politic, the number jump probably up to 8 or even 9.
Click to expand...

If north and south america are one why not euroasia and africa?
 
I think its hard to argue that geographically Europe is a seperate continent.

But "Continent" has always has political meanings as well.
 
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