I was reading the thread about the 5 rings representing 5 continents and how there are actually seven, etc. Anyway, I always thought there were six continents:
North America
South America
Eurasia
Africa
Australia
Antarctica
After doing a quick search in Yahoo, I saw that Europe and Asia are two separate continents? Why? The rest I can understand, because there is very little land connecting any two of them. But there’s a huge border between Asia and Europe. Why is that divided. I also considered cultural differences, but that didn’t make sense at all, either, or we’d have a few hundred continents. So, what gives? I need the straight dope here.
At one time, of course, all the land mass was united in one “continent,” Pangea. The “continental” plates then migrated and separated. The 7 continents, however, do not conform to those plates. North America and South America are divided just by a canal, a man-made artifact. In nature, there was no division, being connected by a long strip of land we call Central America, which we do not call a separte continent.
I think that the reason Europe and Asia are divided into 2 continents is the same reason as why N & S America are 2 continets: the overwhelming mass. This is just a convention. Greenland is sometimes called a continent since it is such a large island. So some say there are 8 continents.
The archaic meaning of continent: something that serves as a container or boundary. The modern definition: one of the main landmasses of the globe. (Great help there.) But yeah, you say, Europe and Asia are quite obviously adjacent via a two-thousand-some mile wide strip (wider than Europe in general).
Basically, it’s because the people that founded Western civilization didn’t explore completely around the Black Sea.
They recognized that there was a large land mass beyond the Isthmus of Suez; they called that Africa. The isthmus at Bosporus (Turkey) is another narrow land strip that separates two large areas. They called those two areas Europe and Asia. This served their definition of ‘continent’.
It wasn’t until much later that they discoverd that Asia and Europe were parts of a single large landmass. That didn’t matter, since they didn’t know of the Americas, Australia, or Antarctica.
Not to nitpick, but…Greenland is NOT considered a continent by most geologists and geographers. The reason being is that the six continents (North America, South America, Eurasia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica) are the largest visible (surface) portion of the techtonic plate that each comprise (the earth’s crust being comprised of a series of plates). Since Greenland is part of the North American plate, geologists/geographers consider Greenland and island and not a continent.
Oye god. I spent a half hour yesterday talking to this Gen X-er nitwit who is half way through a book that is offering him “very strong” evidence that Atlantis was positioned in the Atlantic Ocean- took up most of the ocean floor area between North America and Europe and Africa. If THAT is the case, then the continental parts that fit so nicely to make Pangaea wouldn’t fit.
I think this guy needs to lay off the Ecstacy and concentrate on life on this planet. The Pangaea scenario makes sense, hence the continental body count we enjoy today.
If you want to get right down to it, Europe and Asia were designated by the Greeks. And from their point of view, it makes sense. You have this big fat peninsula jutting west, surrounded by water on three sides, and this landmass tapering south, separated by water from the other one. So you call the fat one to the east Asia (>Asia Minor) and the tapering one to its northeast Europe. Later you add on Africa.
They didn’t know that there were several hundred miles of Russian steppe linking the two a thousand miles northeast of them.
Alternatively, you could consider it as planning ahead, for when the Great Ural Rift Valley opens up in 2,498,632 AD and divides them.
After the Illinois-Michigan canal was built, the Eastern US is completely separated from the rest of North America by water. I’m going to go ahead and declare that this is a new continent, because that’s apparently how it’s done. I’d like to be the first to welcome you to the continent of Tubonia.
