continent

thumb|upright=1.6|Animated, colour-coded map showing four to seven continents – depending on the boundaries between the continents|convention and model, some continents may be consolidated or subdivided.

OverviewAI-generated

A continent is a landmass that is part of Earth and its crust. It is distinct from the continental crust and parts of the world, though it partially coincides with the latter. The concept is opposite to an ocean and is defined by boundaries between the continents of Earth.

The term is categorized under Continents and is the subject of the Template:Infobox continent and Template:Continents of Earth. It is described in sources such as the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary and the Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition. The concept is referenced by 1,538 other encyclopedia articles and appears in the Commons gallery and category.

Synthesized by Vinony from 24 facts across 3 sources: Wikidata, Firecrawl, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Described at

Who’s On First | Docs | Placetypes

Who’s on First is a gazetteer of places.

whosonfirst.org →

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Encyclopedic overview

24 sections

Contents

Etymology
Definitions and application {{Anchor|Definition}}
Extent
Separation
Number
Eighth continent
Area and population
Other divisions
Supercontinents
Subcontinents
Submerged continents
Microcontinents
Geological continents
History of the concept
Early concepts of the Old World continents
European arrival in the Americas
Beyond four continents
Geology
Criticism
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links

A continent is any of several large terrestrial geographical regions. Continents are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria. A continent could be a single large landmass, a landmass and nearby islands either on or beyond its continental shelf, or a part of a larger landmass, as in the case of Asia and Europe within Eurasia. Due to these varying definitions, the number of continents varies, up to seven or as few as four. Most English-speaking countries recognize seven continents. In order from largest to smallest in area, these seven are Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia (or sometimes Oceania or Australasia). Different variations with fewer continents merge some of these regions; examples of this are merging Asia and Europe into Eurasia, North America and South America into the Americas (or simply America), and Africa, Asia, and Europe into Afro-Eurasia.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “continent” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.