The continent known indistinctly as Australia or Oceania should not be confused with the country of Australia, for Australia (the continent) includes Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea, and New Zealand, as well as Polynesian and Micronesian islands. There is also a common misconception concerning Australia (the continent) and Australia (the country). ![]() Some people would also take the landmass that encompasses Europe and Asia as one whole known as Eurasia. Whether you believe there are 5, 6, or 7 continents would largely depend on when and where (i.e., which country) you went to school. Other people believe that there are 6 continents, as follows:īut, by far, the most commonly agreed number of continents is 7: The five continents would be the following: Indeed, some people still believe to be the case. It used to be believed that there were only 5 continents. “Comparison of area (by tens of millions of square kilometers) and population (by billions of people)” by chris 論/ Wikipedia is licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 How many continents are there?Īlthough the number seven is the most common for continents, there are two other widely spread and fairly accepted number of continents. These shifts continue and will create new continents in the distant future (we are talking about hundreds of millions of years from now). It would be a mistake to think that the shifts that created the 7 continents have stopped. As oceans rise, continents become, by that definition, smaller.īut not only that, the land masses that we now call continents are the result of shifts that broke up a supercontinent that scientists have called Pangea. ![]() Why? Because the shapes and boundaries of continents are always changing. Four ContinentsĪt its most basic, we could say that continents are the areas of our planet’s surface that are not underwater.Īnyone with a sharp mind would immediately pick holes in that definition. This saltwater surface has been organized into 5 distinct oceans, whereas the relatively small land surface we have organized into 7 distinct continents. Most of the surface is actually covered in water (about 70%). Why does studying continents and oceans so important? Because if you want to understand Planet Earth, you really need to understand the planet’s surface. – John MuirĬan you name the 7 continents of the world?Īnd even when we know that the correct number is 7 continents and 5 oceans, it is more challenging than it may initially seem to name them all. When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty. ![]() The reason for this is that, even though most of us study the world’s oceans and continents at school, very often we found ourselves in conversations where people do not seem to agree on the exact number of continents and oceans. One of the most fascinating scientific topics is the study of the 5 oceans and 7 continents. The 5 oceans of the world are the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean. The 7 continents of the world are North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
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