# Is Australia still a continent? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 13, 2009, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-australia-still-a-continent/481163 "2009-01-13T22:40:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-australia-still-a-continent/481163/1 "2009-01-13T22:40:34Z")
I was talking to a fellow the other day who insisted that Australia the continent is now Australia-New Guinea. I thought I would have heard the announcement, and I hadn’t, so I checked Wikipedia and the it seems to say that Australia is still a continent, but hedges a bit as one gets down to the body of the text. Please weigh in. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-australia-still-a-continent/481163/2 "2009-01-13T22:58:07Z")
There is no real rigorous definition of a continent. Any definition is necessarily arbitrary. But historically Australia has generally been considered to be a continent, and this remains the case. Probably the most widely accepted definition of a continent is a very large body of land that is entirely or almost entirely surrounded by water. By this definition Australia is a continent ([although this recent thread discusses whether it might also be considered an island.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=497504)) Australia and New Guinea lie on the same tectonic plate, so they are part of the same block of continental crust. There is a shallow underwater connection between them, and they did form a single continental mass when sea levels were lower during the Ice Ages. There may be some geographer somewhere who for this reason advocates considering Australia and New Guinea as the same “continent,” but this is not the conventional definition. By the same standard, Eurasia and North America would also have to be considered to be the same continent, since there is a broad shallow-water connection between them across the Bering Sea. England, Ireland, Japan, Sumatra, Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo, and Java would all be part of Eurasia as well. ---
**Author:** ![633squadron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/ee59a6/32.png) [@633squadron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/633squadron)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-australia-still-a-continent/481163/3 "2009-01-13T23:02:55Z")
Wha? And further: > [@TV\_time](#): > > so I checked Wikipedia and the it seems to say that Australia is still a continent, but hedges a bit as one gets down to the body of the text. Exact link? The Wikipedia article on the word “continent” (in English, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent)), states that only Antarctica and Australia meet the strictest common definition of the word “continent”. See the section “Separation of continents”, first paragraph, second sentence, second clause. Perhaps your friend heard that one definition of continent is a landmass plus its surrounding continental “shelf”, and therefore reasoned that since New Guinea is only separated from Australia by relatively shallow shelf seafloor, the two are one “continent”. Or, he/she reasoned that both New Guinea and Australia are on the same tectonic plate. Or, he/she had someone explain plate tectonics to him/her and misunderstood it. Or he/she is a fount of slightly askew knowledge. It has been known to happen!:smack: I once heard a woman claim with “authority” that Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker for you young-uns) had been the companion of Martha Raye for many years. Hunh? Despite the fact that he was married to someone at the time? Of course, she was _thinking of_ Mark Harris. Knowledge is a gigantic game of Telephone. ---
**Author:** ![fortytwo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f9ae1b/32.png) [@fortytwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fortytwo)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-australia-still-a-continent/481163/4 "2009-01-13T23:12:56Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > … England, Ireland, Japan, Sumatra, Ceylon, Sumatra, Borneo, and Java would all be part of Eurasia as well. In the interest of accuracy - and getting fed up with my country being ignored - you can count in Scotland and Wales too. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-australia-still-a-continent/481163/5 "2009-01-14T00:16:44Z")
> [@Vetch](#): > > In the interest of accuracy - and getting fed up with my country being ignored - you can count in Scotland and Wales too. Why do you hate the Channel Islands? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Batman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@The\_Batman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Batman)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-australia-still-a-continent/481163/6 "2009-01-14T00:36:14Z")
In Mexico it has always (since I started paying attention anyways) been taught that Australia was part of Oceana, the continent that includes Oz, New Zealand, New Guinea, and all the Polynesian islands, including Hawaii. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-australia-still-a-continent/481163/7 "2009-01-14T00:46:38Z")
How about this: **Geographically** (and traditionally) Australia – the body of land with five states (but not Tasmania), Northern Territory, and the ACT, consitutes one of the seven continents – or six if you count Eurasia as a single megacontinent. **Geomorphologically** Australia constitutes the core of a single coherent land unit, albeit presently divided by shallow seas, that also includes Tasmania and New Guinea. By the same token, however, North America also includes Newfoundland, the Arctic Archipelago, the Aleutians, and Greenland – but not California west of the San Andreas (including Baja). One frame of reference is not better or more modern than the other – each has its appropriate place. One cannot hike from Melbourne to Hobart, despite their being part of the same geomorphological unit. In about 100,000,000 years, the La Brea Tar Pit (or its location at least) will be due west of the Alberta Tar Sands. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-australia-still-a-continent/481163/8 "2009-01-14T03:34:00Z")
> [@Vetch](#): > > In the interest of accuracy - and getting fed up with my country being ignored - you can count in Scotland and Wales too. I meant to say Great Britain. > [@Tijuana\_Golds](#): > > In Mexico it has always (since I started paying attention anyways) been taught that Australia was part of Oceana, the continent that includes Oz, New Zealand, New Guinea, and all the Polynesian islands, including Hawaii. The [Latin American definition of the continents](http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continente) differs significantly from that typically used in the US and other English-speaking countries. For one thing, “America” is considered to be a single continent rather than two. “Oceania” does not correspond to a continent according to the usual anglophone concept, but rather to a geographic region. [The Wikipedia article on continents in English](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent) illustrates the differences in definitions from those used in Latin America. Here’s the section on varying classification schemes: > [@](#): > > The narrowest meaning of continent is that of a continuous[6] 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 is used to refer to mainland Europe, excluding islands such as Great Britain, Ireland, and Iceland, and the term continent of Australia may refer to the mainland of Australia, excluding Tasmania. Similarly, the continental United States refers to the 48 contiguous United States in central North America and may include Alaska in the northwest of the continent (both separated by Canada), while excluding Hawaii in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. > > 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)[7] and the islands on the shelf (continental islands), as they are structurally part of the continent.[8] From this perspective the edge of the continental shelf is the true edge of the continent, as shorelines vary with changes in sea level.[9] In this sense the islands of Great Britain and Ireland are part of Europe, and Australia and the island of New Guinea together form a continent (Australia-New Guinea). > > As a cultural construct, the concept of a continent may go beyond the continental shelf to include oceanic islands and continental fragments. In this way, Iceland is considered part of Europe and Madagascar part of Africa. Extrapolating the concept to its extreme, some geographers take Australia, New Zealand and all the islands of Oceania (or sometimes Australasia) to be equivalent to a continent, allowing the entire land surface of the Earth to be divided into continents or quasi-continents.[10]