The land portion of the earth is comprised of seven large masses, which are called continents.
A continent is one of several very large landmasses of the world. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in area to smallest, they are: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.[1]
Geologically, the continents largely correspond to areas of continental crust that are found on the continental plates. However, some areas of continental crust are regions covered with water not usually included in the list of continents. Zealandia is one such area (see submerged continents below).
Islands are frequently grouped with a neighbouring continent to divide all the world's land into geopolitical regions. 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
Definitions and application
By convention, "continents are understood to be large, continuous, discrete masses of land, ideally separated by expanses of water."[2] Several of the seven conventionally recognized continents are not discrete landmasses separated completely by water. The criterion "large" leads to arbitrary classification: Greenland, with a surface area of 2,166,086 square kilometres (836,330 sq mi) is considered the world's largest island, while Australia, at 7,617,930 square kilometres (2,941,300 sq mi) is deemed the smallest continent.
Earth's major landmasses all have coasts on a single, continuous World Ocean, which is divided into a number of principal oceanic components by the continents and various geographic criteria.
Extent
The most restricted meaning of continent is that of a continuous[5] area of land or mainland, with the coastline and any land boundaries forming the edge of the continent. In this sense the term continental Europe (sometimes referred to in Britain as "the Continent") is used to refer to mainland Europe, excluding islands such as Great Britain, Ireland, Malta and Iceland, and the term continent of Australia may refer to the mainland of Australia, excluding Tasmania and New Guinea. Similarly, the continental United States refers to the 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia in central North America and may include Alaska in the northwest of the continent (the two being separated by Canada), while excluding Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam in the oceans.
From the perspective of geology or physical geography, continent may be extended beyond the confines of continuous dry land to include the shallow, submerged adjacent area (the continental shelf)[6] and the islands on the shelf (continental islands), as they are structurally part of the continent.[7]
From this perspective, the edge of the continental shelf is the true edge of the continent, as shorelines vary with changes in sea level.[8] In this sense the islands of Great Britain and Ireland are part of Europe, while Australia and the island of New Guinea together form a continent.