Last week I mentioned that CreativeMornings is now on 6 continents, which caused a bit of confusion over how many continents there are.
What I’ve since learned is that there are in fact different models being taught around the world. 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 and Japan. The six-continent combined-America model is taught in Latin America and in some parts of Europe including Greece, Portugal and Spain. I can somewhat understand that we can’t seem to get all of our outlets to be the same, but count of continents? Really?
Check the Wikipedia Entry on this Topic.
Last summer, while au pairing in Germany, I met au pairs from New Zealand, Paris, Zimbabwe and we all had a long, intense debate about how many continents there are! It was fascinating!
May 11th, 2012 / 11:14 am
When I was at school I was taught that there were 5 continents: europe, asia, austraila, africa and america (combining south and north america). That was a german school in South Korea. At the same time, when I was american TV (that’s the only thing I could understand there) they were talking about seven continets. Very weird…
May 11th, 2012 / 11:16 am
To be honest, I always think of five continents: America, Asia, Australia, Africa and Europa. (I tend to forget Antarctica.)
May 11th, 2012 / 11:20 am
7 Continents is the right number. But your globe is wrong, Australia is not a continent, it’s a country. The continent’s name is Oceania witch includes Australia and the adjacent Pacific islands
May 11th, 2012 / 11:26 am
There’s only one continent: Pangea, but it seems nobody wants to solve the puzzle :)
May 11th, 2012 / 11:35 am
I also learned in France 5 continent : Europe, America, Asia, Oceania and Africa. Like the rings in the Olympic Games.
May 11th, 2012 / 12:08 pm
But that was back in time when we also had 9 planets … you know… perception
May 11th, 2012 / 12:20 pm
We teach seven in our preschool—North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Antarctica. There’s even a catchy song about it!
May 11th, 2012 / 12:46 pm
LI’m from Portugal and also learned 5 continents and they taught us that the Olympic Games rings represented each one of them. So I guess they don’t make sense for people who learn 6 or 7 continents…
May 11th, 2012 / 1:20 pm
I’m from Portugal and also learned 5 continents and they taught us that the Olympic Games rings represented each one of them. So I guess they don’t make sense for people who learn 6 or 7 continents…
May 11th, 2012 / 1:21 pm
“I can somewhat understand that we can’t seem to get all of our outlets to be the same, but count of continents? Really?”
Yes, really. The world is huge with lots of people, these people can see the same land and draw lines on it differently.
Also, on a map, which side is “up”? Europe on top? How convenient.
May 11th, 2012 / 2:13 pm
so funny… I always learned 7 (I’m american) but I just asked my husband who told me 5 (he is european). Strange!
May 11th, 2012 / 3:28 pm
Either way, what’s strange is that even when in the united states you teach that there are two “americas” you consider yourselves
‘americans’.
May 11th, 2012 / 4:25 pm
Australia isn’t a continent, it’s a country. Australasia is what our continent is called.
May 11th, 2012 / 4:51 pm
I like your website/blog, but honestly your last line about failing to appreciate the differences of opinion what is a fairly amorphous concept would indicate a closed/non-playful mind. Shouldn’t we always play with the “facts and rules” we’re given?
May 11th, 2012 / 6:54 pm
As a Latinamerican from a US territory my continents has always been, in Spanish: América, Europa, África, Asia, Oceanía, and Antártida. Here in the continental US when people say “here in America…” I always find myself interrupting with the question: “America, from Tierra del Fuego to the Queen Elizabeth Islands?” just to make them realize that not everyone calls the US, America. For a reason the name says United States of America, emphasis in “of America”.
May 11th, 2012 / 10:36 pm
‘Most English speaking countries’ say it’s 7? In Australia we are taught 6, and New Zealand, UK and South Africa, are the same:
The Americas
Europa
África
Asia
Oceanía
Antarctica
I have never in my life heard of 7. Is this only what is taught in the US? Seems that any site mentioning 7 is from the US.
Interesting topic; thanks for sharing.
May 12th, 2012 / 3:32 am
I must be an allien ’cause I’ve always believed it was consensual there were 8 continents! Well, maybe not an allien, but sure very stupid! :)
May 12th, 2012 / 7:58 am
There’s no Antarctica Creative Mornings is there? So, technically, you were right? It IS only on 6 continents, 6 of 7 :)
May 12th, 2012 / 11:34 am
I am amazed at all the people counting the America’s as one continent, while counting Europe and Asia as two. Clearly, Eurasia is a single land mass, and if land mass is to be the defining characteristic of a continent then it is one continent, not two.
With respect to the America’s, because the isthmus of Panama is so narrow, it makes sense to me to count it as two.
I have never accepted the arguments that Australia is not continent unless all of the islands of Oceania are included with it and that Australia itself is an island. No where else in the world do we count a collection of islands as a continent. A continent is defined by Wikipedia simply as a “very large land mass,” and by TheFreeDictionary.com as “one of the earth’s large land masses.” I personally am satisfied that Australia is a continent with the islands of Oceania belonging to its land mass.
Therefore, I count six continents, though differently from others here, as follows:
North America
South America
Eurasia
Africa
Australia
Antarctica
May 12th, 2012 / 10:56 pm
Emma is right – Australia isn’t a continent, it’s a country. I live in New Zealand and Australasia is the name of our continent.
May 13th, 2012 / 6:30 am
You all might enjoy this video (http://youtu.be/3uBcq1x7P34) by C.G.P. Grey on this very subject. Apart from his take on continents, his Youtube channel is very much worth subscribing to.
May 13th, 2012 / 7:28 am
There’s just one continent, “one island”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map
May 13th, 2012 / 8:20 pm
Nice video Greg, so everyone can make his continents like he wants…hmmm.
Interesting due to our times where people always want to have a a “yes or no” answer.
May 13th, 2012 / 8:40 pm
I’m Irish and we are taught about 7 continents, South America was always seperate to North America, Europe, Antartica, Oceania, Africa and Asia. I think it’s so strange about people being taught there was only 5! Didn’t you look at a globe and think ‘where does the antartic fit into this?’ It’s quite big!! And for your teachers to use the olympic rings to demonstrate this…just because antartica is uninhabited and there’ll never be any athletes representing it in the olympic games doesn’t mean it isn’t a continent! It’s scary how deficent our education systems still are
May 14th, 2012 / 2:51 am
In Czech, we are taught several separate models (which makes everything SO confusing):
* 6 continent model – Europe, Americas, Asia, Africa, Antarctica, Australia and Oceania
* 7 continent model – EU, S America, N America, Asia, Africa, Antarctica, Australia & Oceania
* 6 Landmasses (similar to continents) – EuroAsia, N America, S America, Africa, Antarctica, Australia and Oceania.
how wonderful :)
May 14th, 2012 / 12:16 pm
I’m Spanish and when I was a little girl there “were” only 5 continents (Africa, America, Asia, Europa and Oceania), later somehow someone realized Antarctica looked like another one and we started to hear about 6 continents. I remember being quite disturbed by the fact that I saw 6 on my maps despite what my teacher said.
May 14th, 2012 / 1:26 pm
I can’t believe it! There is Central America, not only South and North.
America is ONE continent with three sub-continents.
May 14th, 2012 / 8:48 pm
>>> I can somewhat understand that we can’t seem to get all of our outlets to be the same, but count of continents? Really?
Tina, we don’t even agree on how to make a world map. China does it differently…
No, that’s not a variation in the orthographic projection used — Note that China is much more central in this one.
I had never seen any layout different from the basic Mercator version using the same scheme — but clearly, people can and do have different ones. I first encountered that in some documentary piece with a scene shot in a Chinese schoolroom — I noticed a world map in the background similar to the link above.
May 15th, 2012 / 2:55 am
>>> There is Central America, not only South and North.
America is ONE continent with three sub-continents.
Sorry, Andrea, there is nothing to delineate “Central” America from the rest of North America.
With North-vs-South, there is the Isthmus of Panama. With Asia-vs- Europe, there is the Ural mountain range (the standard dividing line when you do delineate the two).
“Central America” is simply a convenient placeholder to deal with the areas of NortthAm not a part of its “big three”.
May 15th, 2012 / 2:59 am
Isn´t Greenland a part of Europe? Danish, right?
May 16th, 2012 / 4:11 am
I can’t believe someone finds surprising that some people count the Americas as one continent, when history mentions the “discovery” of a New World who got the name America after Amerigo Vespucci. If it was considered from a beginning as two different continents probably the north and south will be named differently. Who knows? The division and naming of continents and lands have a lot of different factors, from history, cultural views, and language. Having you notice the comments on Australia, Australasia and Oceania? Each of the different ways of subdividing and naming the regions of the planet are right, our culture defines how we see the world, and this is one way.
May 17th, 2012 / 10:08 am
There are 6 continents. There is no physiogeological division between Europe and Asia, they are one continent (Eurasia).
May 19th, 2012 / 9:03 pm
I was taught in school that Central America is a continent. Pretty disturbing to change that.
May 21st, 2012 / 11:31 am
I am from Russia and we always were taught there are 6 continents on our planet. They are Eurasia (because look first what a continent is), Africa, North America, South America, Australia and Antarctica. And there are 6 main parts of the world: Europe, Asia, America (whole, north and south continents), Africa, Australia/Oceania, Antarctica.
Now I live in USA and my husband noticed that I was talking with my daughter about 6 continents. We had to find out that people in different countries were educated different and looks like everybody is right who think there are 6 or 7 continents. But I refer to 6, because Eourope and Asia is one whole landmass.
May 25th, 2012 / 12:20 pm
I live in Nigeria, let the geographers sit down to reach compromise and agree on one( 6 or 7 )
May 28th, 2012 / 7:16 am
Unfortunately, all geographers in different countries think differently, otherwise we wouldn’t have any discussion :)
May 28th, 2012 / 7:52 pm
I always that America was one continent and not divided into North and South.
Jun 9th, 2012 / 4:52 pm
I always that America was one continent and not divided into North and South. And, actually 50 yrs ago when I was in school, Antarica was not considered a continent so there were only 5 continents.
Jun 9th, 2012 / 4:54 pm
I was always taught that America was one continent and not divided into North and South. And, actually 50 yrs ago when I was in school, Antarica was not considered a continent so there were only 5 continents.
Jun 9th, 2012 / 4:55 pm
I was always taught that America was one continent and not divided into North and South. And, actually 50 yrs ago when I was in school, Antarica was not considered a continent so there were only 5 continents. I was educated under the British system.
Jun 9th, 2012 / 4:56 pm
I’m from the Dominican Republic, and I was taught about 5 continents: Africa, America (only one), Europe, Asia and Oceania.
Found this discussion while reading some technical article about GPS where there is a mention of 7 continents, what triggered my memory and started to google for clarifications.
My opinion is that that the correct model is the one with 6 continents: Africa, America, Eurasia, Australiasia and Antartica.
Two Americas? it is still the same landmass, if you consider an island as part of a continent, why wouldn’t you consider a contiguous landmass as one?
Counting Europe and Asia as one, that make sence!
Jul 17th, 2012 / 6:08 pm
fascinating
Jul 28th, 2012 / 8:14 am
Ok I was taught in school there were 6 continents including Antarctica, if you are counting North America and South America as different continents where is Central AMERICA?????!!! For my it’s 6 North and South American are only divisions no different continents, it’s all ONE continent!
Oct 24th, 2012 / 3:06 pm
Though I was taught 7 continents here in Canada, I now reject that and consider America to be a single continent and NOT a country. Thus there are 6 continents: America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia and Antractica.
The fact that America is a continent and not a country is just common sense. If North America is IN Africa and South Asia is IN Asia, then North and South America are both IN America too. America can’t be IN North America, that would be stupid and also insulting to those of who live in the other 34 countries that are in America.
Nov 26th, 2012 / 1:40 pm
My original comment contained a typo that I had to correct:
Though I was taught 7 continents here in Canada, I now reject that and consider America to be a single continent and NOT a country. Thus there are 6 continents: America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia and Antractica.
The fact that America is a continent and not a country is just common sense. If North Africa is IN Africa and South Asia is IN Asia, then North and South America are both IN America too. America can’t be IN North America, that would be stupid and also insulting to those of who live in the other 34 countries that are in America.
Nov 26th, 2012 / 1:41 pm
This design is spectacular! You most certainly
know how to keep a reader entertained. Between your wit and your videos, I was almost moved to start my
own blog (well, almost…HaHa!) Excellent job. I really loved what you had to say, and more than that,
how you presented it. Too cool!
May 3rd, 2013 / 12:14 am
I was taught the 7 continent model, and I always wondered why Europe and Asia were considered one continent, when the word “continent” appeared — in every OTHER instance — to be defined strictly as a (mostly) discreet, landmass of a certain large size separated by almost entirely by WATER (not mountain ranges) from other landmasses. Eurasia is clearly one landmass — so why classify it as two continents? Here is a link to an article from the Columbia University’s “Asia for Educator” website that explores that question and the history behind this arbitrary definition of Europe as a separate continent:
http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/geography/geo_whatis.html
It’s fascinating reading from everybody’s posts just how many different models of “continent” exist in different parts of the world. I tend to favor those that stick to defining “continent” in terms of strictly physical geography — because once you bring in other considerations for possible dividing lines (cultures, history, the number of rings on the Olympic flag) the word “continent” begins to lose any meaningful definition.
But I do contend that, whatever rule one uses to decide what constitutes a continent, and therefore to decide how many continents you would number on the globe, it is only correct if it is CONSISTENT. So, I think a 6 continent model that includes Africa, Antarctica, Eurasia, North America, South America, and Australia, is correct because it is consistent.
Another consistent model would be a 4 continent model, that groups them as: Americas (both S. and N.), Antarctica, Eurasia-Africa, and Australia. Nobody uses this model, of course, and it’s a fairly useless as a way to think about dividing up the world, because Euroasia-Africa so enormous. But it IS one connected landmass.
The models that I don’t think work — because they aren’t consistent with their own logic — are those that call North and South America one continent, while dividing Africa, Europe, and Asia into 3. The isthmus connecting the Americas narrows to a mere 77 km — half the width of the Sinai land bridge connecting Africa and Asia — so why would they be considered one continent while Africa’s connection to Asia is ignored — let alone Europe and Asia’s continuity?
While respecting differing opinions, I would like to issue a challenge to those who define the Americas as one continent and Africa/Europe/Asia as either two or three continents:
Please post a definition of the word “continent” that accurately describes every continent that you would call a continent, in your model.
Jun 6th, 2013 / 9:15 pm