Who decides what islands to include as part of a continent? This refers to last night’s Final Jeopardy in which Jakarta is called the southernmost Asian capital. If I had had an atlas in front of me I would have answered Kuala Lumpur, which is the southernmost capital on the mainland. (Without an atlas in front of me, I foolishly guessed Rangoon). My geographical dictionary counts Singapore as the southernmost part of Asia, even though it’s on an island. Encyclopedia Britannica says Indonesia is generally considered part of Asia, but that New Guinea isn’t.
It always seemed odd to me that the southernmost point of South America is Cape Horn, which isn’t on the mainland. Is the northernmost point of Greenland considered the northernmost point in North America? Does Iceland belong to any continent? What about the Caribbean islands? Are New Guinea and Tasmania considered part of the Australian continent? Are Great Britain and Ireland considered part of the European continent?
Who decides? Is there any rational basis, or is it completely arbitrary. Does it have something to do with the continental shelf, or the tectonic plates?
I think (as you speculated) that the continental shelf is at least part of the definition of a continent. This can’t be taken strictly for several reasons:
[ul]
[li]The N. American and Asian continental shelves are joined under the Bering Strait[/li][li]N. America and S. America are attached by dry land.[/li][li]Europe and Asia are basically the same landmass, but are divided based on historical reasons.[/li][/ul]
Certainly islands near the coast can be considered part of the continent. But ones like Hawaii, although the 50th US state, are independent.
This question bugged me too. I was thinking Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, which is south of Jakarta. Now, Indonesia is all on islands: Java, Borneo (southern part), Timor, Sumatra, New Guinea (western part), plus many smaller islands. So, if Indonesia is an Asian country, part of which is on New Guinea, why isn’t Papua New Guinea considered Asian. Probably Indonesia is considered part Asian, part independent island, ala US with Hawaii. So the island of New Guinea is independent of the Asian continental shelf and any country fully on it (Papua New Guinea) is not Asian.
If the capital of Indonesia was on NG, then the question would’ve been answered with Singapore.
Bibliophage, I was sitting there watching it, too, and I was going, “Singapore, Singapore” and I was flabbergasted to hear, “what is Jakarta?”. I’m, like, “What?”
Jakarta is in Indonesia, which is NOT part of Asia, I’m sorry but no way, I don’t care how many monkeys Jeopardy hired to bang away at typewriters until they came up with “Final Jeopardy” questions.
I have my own little scheme. I include all the islands near Australia, the Pacific Islands, and Australia itself, in a continent called Oceania. For historical reasons, I put Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan in Asia, but Papua New Guinea is closer to Oceania so it goes there.
Caribbean Islands (again for historical reasons) seem to me to be most similar to Central America, therefore they get to be in the same pigeonhole as Mexico and Panama.
Iceland, Great Britain, Ireland, Greenland get dumped in the Europe bucket because of their population. (Greenland is still a Danish territory as far as I know.)
My continents: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, Antarctica. Europe stops at the Ural mountains so part of Russia is in Europe. South America starts with Mexico, and therefore includes Central America, not a continent per se but a half continent. As a matter of fact (I’m making this up as I go along, such is genius) South America is a continent divided into two half-continents, South America proper and Central America.
I know that some people will disagree with me on some of my methodology but I don’t care because I’m always right.
P.S. Our kindly straight dope advisory team have attempted to tackle the issue also.
As I look at it, there’s no way you can put Mexico in Central America. It just isn’t part of that area. Much of that is historical. Most of Central America when it became independent was one country, although that didn’t last long. Mexico wasn’t part of that country.
As I see North America, it consists of the US, Canada, Mexico, and Greenland. Central America consists only of Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Panama.
When Panama was part of Columbia, most geographers considered the Isthmus to be the northern end of South America. After Panama’s independence, it ended up as the southern end of North America.
In the soccer world, North America’s group is the Football Confederation, formerly CONCACAF. It consists of North America, Central America, the Caribbean, Surinam, Guyana, and French Guiana. (The last three added because they really suck at soccer compared to the rest of South America. However, they also suck compared to the rest of North America too.)
I would consider Indonesia part of Asia only because politically and economically that’s how it’s viewed.
BobT: Mexico is not considered to be part of Central America, but it is considered to be part of Meso-America. Go figure. I looked it up after getting another Jeopardy answer wrong a week or two ago. It turns out my teachers had lied to me. Again.
I don’t know if this had any bearing on the determination, but biogeographically Java is clearly on the Asian side of the Wallace line, and very distinct from the Austalian fauna.
Meso-America usually only refers to the pre-Columbian era. Central America didn’t really come into being until the independence movements of the early 1800s.
At the library where I work books on Panama are shelved next to books on Colombia (986 and 986.1). I guess the catalogers here still have issues with Theodore Roosevelt.
