If I were to ask you how many continents there are you might think “what an easy question!”
and if like me you are from the English speaking world you would say seven.
but if you ask some people from elsewhere in the world you could be told as few as 5.
Why is that and what are the different models of thought?
Watch this video and find out.
Before we begin lets define what a continent is:
A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth.
There are no set guidelines for defining a continent and they are generally identified
by history and convention rather than any strict criteria.
up to seven regions are commonly regarded as continents.
Ordered from largest in size to smallest, they are: Asia, Africa, North America, South
America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.
In geology, areas of continental crust, found on continental plates largely correspond to
the continents, and a number of areas of continental crust are regions covered with water not usually
included in the list of continents.
These are known as submerged continents.
Islands are frequently grouped with a neighbouring continent to divide all the world's land into
geopolitical regions.
For example under this scheme, most of the island countries and territories in the Pacific
Ocean are grouped together with the continent of Australia to form a geopolitical region
called Oceania.
Ok so the concept of a continent is a little bit unclear so you can possibly see why different
countries might have different ideas about how many continents there are.
Because of this there are a number of models used throughout the world - not counting possible
submerged continents.
The most common model is the seven continent model I mentioned earlier which lists the
continents as; north America, south America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Antarctica and Australia/Oceania.
This seven-continent model is taught in China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, parts of
Western Europe and most English-speaking countries.
After this there are two different models which say there are six continents:
One model combines Europe and Asia into one massive continent called Eurasia
The six-continent combined-Eurasia model is mostly used in Russia, Eastern European countires,
and Japan.
The second model makes north and south America into one into one big America:
this six-continent combined-America model is used in France and its former colonies,
Italy, Portugal, Spain, Romania, Latin America, and Greece.
Originations such as the UN and the Olympic committee use various forms of these models
removing Antarctica as it is un populated.
So the answer to the question of how many continents are there is between 5-7 depending
on your education system or maybe more if you count submerged continents such as Zealandia.
So to recap: There are no official rules for to define
continents.
There are anything between 5-7 continents And the number depends upon where you where
you grew up.
I would like to thank the guys from the comments of the south American flags video who inspired
this video, and if you would like to let us know what system is used in your country then
please leave a comment.