Europe a Continent ?

Who first decided Europe was a continent and when?

What is the criteria that allows Europe to be a continent and India just a subcontinent,

What is the criteria that allows Australia to be a continent but not Greenland.

Well, Australia is much bigger than Greenland.

Europe’s a subcontinent. ;p

Not according to my Mercador projection map. :smiley:

It’s too much for me to summarize, but Wikipedia actually has a pretty thorough handling of the subject.

Staff Report
Why are Europe and Asia considered separate continents? What’s a continent, anyway? (Apr-21-1999)

Straight Dope column (a short answer from the Master)
Why do Europe and Asia count as two continents? (01-Jul-1983)

This is what I miss by sleeping at night.

Europe is a continent because the continents were defined by Europeans.

Once more, people: There is nothing scientific about the way people divided the world into continents. It is totally arbitrary, but is influenced by history and culture. You could call India a continent, and it would be just as logically defensable as Europe being a continent is. (Maybe even moreso, because the Himalayas form a rather effective barrier to movement, whereas the Ural Mountains are pretty much just speedbumps on the road to Siberia.)

Similarly, some people group the islands in the Pacific Ocean together and call them Oceana. Other people say that islands don’t belong to any continent. Neither side is right or wrong; continents are what you want them to be.

The criteria is that Europe is the land situated north of the Mediterranean Sea, Asia what lies east of it and Africa what lies south of it. There’s no criteria defining what is a continent apart from long standing tradition (and local tradition at that : the Americas are two continents in the USA, one continent in Europe).

The Americas are divided in two in the UK, sometimes three (North, Central and South).

I’ve never hear that last bit. Got a cite for it?

>Europe is a continent because the continents were defined by Europeans.

This is certainly what I’ve always figured. I’m surprised more people don’t remark upon it.

It is bounded (on the east) by the Great gate of Kiev.

The Americas is North and South (and Central) America in Europe, as far as I understand it as a long time European. Otherwise, it’s America, which usually means USA, but sometimes USA and Canada, or, if being generous, North America as a whole. Picturing the Americas as one continent would go against any school book in Europe, I’d say, if not provieded a cite saying otherwise.

Aside of that, I’m very bothered by the term Central America, which I thought I understood very well (the thingy between the continents with a major canal), until I had this conversation amongst people of high education:

Wakinyan: “blah-blah-blah-blah in South America.”
Educated guy: “Yeah, but that was in Colombia.”
Wakinyan: “Right.”
Educated guy: “Well, that’s *Central *America.”
Wakinyan, picturing a map with continents and sort of appendix in between, which ought to be the central, while Mexico and Colombia ought to be the North and the South … oh fuck it. “Right. That’s what I said.”

‘Central America’ is pretty much just a way of trying to explain ‘West Indies’ still being in common usage :slight_smile:

Exactly my point.

About North and south America being only one continent? Nope. It’s just what I’ve been taught at school. There has been a thread on the same topic in the past where several European posters (including myself) stated the same (that it was taught this way in their country).

I checked the French version on wikipedia that stated that the 6 continent model (with America being one, as opposed to the 6 continent model with America being two and Eurasia one) was the most common in eastern Europe and Latin America.
Since it was mentioned that Western Europe rather adopted the 7 continents model, which was contrary to my experience, I checked further in case things would have changed since I was schooled (long time ago). But it seems it didn’t, as shown for instance in this french primary school blog where the 6 continents are depicted with different colors, with north and south America being only one.

I also made a quick search in Spanish (there’s no other language I know and could check) and it turned the same result : this map with only one American continent and the mention :

Existen seis continentes (grandes extensiones de tierras emergidas): Asia, África, Europa, América, Oceanía y la Antártida; (There are 6 continents […] : Asia, Africa, Europe, ** America **, Oceania y Antarctic)

Jesus. Are French schoolchildren actually taught that New Guinea is split between two continents by a straight line?

As a national border, why not? Makes as much sense as splitting Europe from Asia.