Given - that a continent has been defined as large unbroken land mass completely surrounded by water, although in some cases continents are (or were in part) connected by land bridges (per Infoplease),
and the major (or only) extant dry land bridge being the Ural and Caucasus mountain ranges that connect the continents of Asia and Europe,
were North America and South America a single continent before the construction of the first Panama Canal and was the continent of Africa created by the construction of the Suez Canal, separating it from Asia (discounting an earlier temporary land bridge reportedly created by Moses)?
“Continent” isn’t a scientific term. There isn’t much to debate. They are man-made and there are varying numbers of them as defined by different people around the world. Eurasia is one landmass that is broken apart into two continents because of cultural, not geological reasons and even that doesn’t work very well in the case of the Middle East and Russia. The only rule is that people named the larger pieces of land a “continent” and sometimes two. The same thing is true with the oceans. Those are made up too.
Per your Infoplease reference, there are only three continents: Antarctica, Australia and something that doesn’t even have a name because it includes North America, South America, Asia, Europe and Africa. All of them were once connected by land and mostly still are except for the Bering Strait that still freezes over sometimes. You can walk around the vast majority of the world if you have really good stamina and many years to spare.
tbh, it’s like something the teacher says in 3rd grade or something. Who cares, really - we know better than when that stuff might have mattered, and tectonic plates are way cooler anyway.
Unless I’m missing something?
North and South America are considered to be a single continent in many, if not most, or maybe even all, European countries. As already stated, the definition of continents is purely cultural. The schoolteacher won’t mention the same number of continents in your country and in mine.
The original three continents were defined in the antiquity according to their position relative to the Mediterranean Sea : Europe being the landmass situated north of it, Asia east of it, and Africa south of it, separated by the strait of Gibraltar, the sea of Marmara, and (almost) the Red Sea. Again, an arbitrary and purely cultural distinction, based on the importance of the Mediterranean for the people we inherited our notion of continents from. So, Africa has always been its own continent in the western world.
The Panama Canal is not like the Suez Canal.
Ships must be raised with locks to go over hills that are higher than the sea levels of the Pacific and the Atlantic. So even if we accept the idea of Africa being separated by the Suez that does not apply to Panama.
Of course Europe is not a continent. LOL
psik
Very few references define continent that way. Most simply define them as “one of Earth’s major landmasses.” A few add “surrounded or mainly surrounded by sea” (or ocean in some cases).
You seem to have lifted this definition from Infoplease, which I would not consider a very authoritative reference.
As has been said, there is no scientific definition of continent. Continents are defined on cultural grounds, which differ in different regions. The continents as recognized in the US are quite different from those recognized in Europe and Latin America.
No one recognizes that an artificial canal creates a new continent.
The current Suez Canal is not the first to connect the Med with the Red Sea.
Yes, but if I’m not mistaken, the previous one only linked the Nile river, rather than directly the Mediterranean Sea, to the Red Sea.
One of them. An even earlier one linked the Red Sea to the Bitter lakes and those to the Med.
In any event, North and South America (even without the canal) are a lot more separated than Europe and Asia.
if that is the case, then every continent is also an island
OTOH, no man is an island!
Not sure how some people are going to answer, guess it depends on point of view, but
North and South Americas, are not nor ever were One continent.
They are 2 different continents, which happens to rotate into each other, and will eventually rotate apart again
Europe and Asia are 2 different continents that are currently and have for a long time been rammed against each other, but have not always been so, and may at some point separate again.
To me, a continent is a land mass (which can be partially submerged) that maintains it’s own independent structure and movement and does not appear to be geologically separable from itself.
A continent may abut another continent and make a multi continental mass, like Eurasia, or may simply brush against another one like the Americas.
They may also at some point all run into each other and form a temporary “Super Continent” which is one compact blob consisting of a bunch of individual continents.
what constitutes a continent to me is what is underneath, not what is on top, and not where it is currently parked, but whats down in the tectonics.
The largest island, Greenland, is less than 1/3rd the size of the smallest continent, Australia.
But what makes Europe a continent besides a silly claim and ridicule if one does not think, or at least say, what he is told?
psik
Europe and Asia as such have never been two separate continents. There is no tectonic boundary between Europe and Asia; instead, Asia incorporates parts of three other tectonic plates (including one that is actually part of North America.)
That might work for Africa, Australia, South America, and Antarctica, but it doesn’t work for North America or Asia (or Eurasia considered as a whole).
Like I said, there is no scientific definition for a continent that holds up. The traditional continents do not conform to tectonic or geological structures.
I was trying to edit my post and got this
The administrator has specified that you can only edit messages for 5 minutes after you have posted. This limit has expired, so you must contact the administrator to make alterations on your message.
So…
editing to fix mistake before someone else does
eurasia is same plate, brain fuzzy.
India/asia separate plate, used to be neighbor to antarctica.
You will have to forgive or sue me, easier to forgive, i have no money 
Why does it not work for north america?
ignoring any country or human designed regions, north america is riding around on it’s own slab so to speak, it moves together and independently from South America.
It is a single plate, as far as i know, discounting a bit of ancillary baggage it has picked up
Can you give some examples to visualize what you’re thinking is?
Greenland is north america though, in non political terms
As north america moves, Greenland goes with it.
They are the same lump with some water running in between the parts
And no water between Europe and Asia.
psik
Europe and asia are the same land mass though
i brain farted in first post, and it wouldnt let me edit
And a single land mass can be broken by water
The land does not only include the part with rocks grass and trees.
When you walk from shore into the oceac, you are still standing on the land mass
and long after your head is far under water, you are still standing on the land mass.
So if we crack and carve up the land and run some water through it, unless we go all the way to the bottom of it and cut it in half there, it is still the same land mass.
North America runs east past alaska and touches asia, and has some land pushed up above water even.
If north america moved, this land would pull out of asia, I am someone is asia would complain greatly about that, but i doubt the plates would listen.
That’s a geopolitical boundary though, not a physical one.