Started an argument with my much smarter wife because she said North and South America are not two separate continents. She was right, because continents are only defined by convention.
Regardless of which definition you go with, someone saying North and South America are one continent but Europe and Asia are two separate continents are at the very least being inconsistent
There isn’t really a natural barrier between North and South America, though. Asia has the Urals.
North and South America have the Darién Mountains/Darién Gap
The Urals don’t even stretch all the way across the continental boundary
Again: inconsistent.
Hmmm… You’re right. It does feel a lot more arbitrary when you put it that way.
Shall we make California its own continent because of the Rockies?
You know what? You actually do have a point.
They’d have to post a sign at the border warning that continents and mountains may cause cancer…
Okay, that was actually pretty funny
Italy is a part of Africa. At least, geologically.
I’m of the unpopular opinion that India/Pakistan should be its own continent and New Zealand should be different continent then Australia. Both because they are different techtonic plates.
It’s hard to have a strict definition when there are only 4-12 of them. We didn’t have a strict definition of planets until less than 20 years ago.
Yes, I personally love 4 continents. Americas, Afro-Eurasia, Oceania, Antarctica
I don’t accept the grouping of Africa and Eurasia as one
If you’re gonna group them like that, there’s no Americas, it’s America.
I think people write Americas because when just writing America too many people assume the US.
Yeah, I’m just being pedantic.
Technically correct. Which is best kind of correct.
Make cents
There’s two definitions in my language. One for land mass continent (eurasia) and the other is more of a geopolitical continent if that makes sense (europe, asia)
I think English needs the same.
The borders between Europe and Asia are absolutely arbitrary and the border between Asia and Africa is the Suez Canal
I remember always questioning that one as a kid. The answer I always got was something about mountains. For some reason, I think the true history, like a lot of arbitrary divisions is probably ✨racism✨
It’s not entirely arbitrary, it’s just based on racism.
Iirc its actually based on some guy assuming a river was a cannal and using it as a geographical border and no one really checking until the border had stuck.
Yeah. People in the US learn about 7 continents at school. In France, we learn about the 5 continents.
What seven, America is two and Europe/Asia is counted twice also? I’m from elsewhere and also learned 5
American here.
- North America
- South America
- Europe
- Asia
- Africa
- Australia (and Oceania)
- Antarctica
N’importe quoi, y a la chocolatine du nord et la chocolatine du sud, ça fait 6, retourne à ton école pourrave à Paimpont (j’ai rien contre Paimpont, c’est très pimpant).
I hope that’s really the gibberish my browser’s translate function tells me it is
It’s very logical.
There’s north chocolatine (basically hillbilly way to say pain au chocolat) and south chocolatine, which according to the above commenter of extremely high IQ, means there as 6 continents instead of five.
commenter of extremely high IQ
WTF did you just call me?? Imma shank you
Maybe some of it is literal word for word translation vs accounting for grammatical differences but …
Anything, there’s northern chocolate and southern chocolate, it’s 6, go back to your school in Paimpont (I have nothing against Paimpont, it’s very pimpant).
Paimpont est réputée pour son école de pompiers.
I remember many years ago I was playing WoW and the conversation in guild chat was about continents so I said that in my country America is a single continent. That moment an American in guild flipped the fuck out and got really mad at me even suggesting that his great country could be in the same continent as mine (Brazil) going as far as saying “that’s so fucking dumb, next you will say Europe and Asia are the same continent?!” which is funny cause eurasia is a thing, what a dumbass.
A friend of mine went from a school in the US to a French school, and when she said there were 7 continents, everyone including the teacher made fun of her.
Dogmatism goes both ways.
Mexico is in North America, but try telling that the common trump supporting gringo.
I remember when central America was a thing.
Edit: Apparently even considering the existence of Central America Mexico is still North America
North America is entirely defined by the NAFTA. Geography is mostly political.
AFAIK, Cuba is on the North American tectonic plate as well…
Yes, but they technically count as “the Caribbean”
Geology doesn’t care about your feelings.
Or anything else, really.
But it does care where we draw the line!
There also isn’t a strict definition of when a pond becomes a lake
Or when a lake becomes a sea. The Alboran Sea is smaller than Lake Superior. The Caspian Sea is a lake. Everything is made up and nothing is real.
Huh. In my language the difference is that a pond is artificial (generally for farming fish), but apparently that’s a fishpond in English and pond can be natural. TIL.
When your mom gets in it
Some states do indeed codify this in law, but the definition varies by state. Michigan and Minnesota for two if I’m remembering correctly.
If Minnesota ever went down to 9,999 lakes, they’d redefine it.
These are BODIES OF WATER, dammit!!! Not something as easily-reclassified like what qualifies as a craft brewery!
You don’t need reclassification to lose a lake; you just need a drought.
Edit: I may have misunderstood you. It’s pretty late, and I should be sleeping…
Personally a great fan of the CGP Grey videos. Continents in this case: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34
Love their videos
There is a useful way to do it: By looking at Tectonic Plates and their boundaries.
According to the image on Wikipedia depicting the plates, there would then be 17 continents, although some of those 17 would be entirely ocean, or only small islands
That map is pure chaotic good vibes.
Half of Japan would be North American? I didn’t expect that.
They do like to play baseball.
Lots of island chains are actually mountain chains partially hidden underwater. And mountain chains usually appear where two tectonic plates ram into one another, causing one of them to bunch up.
I’m really surprised this is the first time I’ve seen Africa as two continents. The Great Rift Valley is well known but I just hadn’t heard going the next logical step
The Red Sea is actually just another rift valley along the same edge of the plate. It just filled in with water first.
These are not continents. The image is more of an illustration of why tectonic plates are not a good way to redefine continents not be arbitrary.
And then India is no longer in Eurasia. Or you could say that Los Angeles is not in North America.
Los Angeles is not in North America
I don’t see a problem with that.
Plus, by tectonic plates, isn’t it America, since N/C/S America are on the same plate, right? (I don’t trust my memory of school from decades ago).
India is usually considered a subcontinent. West Coast is a geologic mess until resolved.
I mean, it useful to geologists. Not so much to economists or sociologists.
I try to explain this to people who don’t believe south americans call themselves americans.
This becomes even more confusing with the way people commonly talk in English versus Spanish. In English, residents of the United States of America typically refer to themselves as Americans, and in English “American” typically only refers to someone from the USA. In Spanish, it seems residents of the USA are typically called the equivalent of “United Stateser” and “American” refers more generally to someone from the continent, at least in some parts of the Spanish-speaking world. I once had an apparent native Spanish-speaker online argue that was the correct form in English as well and insisted that the official name of the country is United States (Estados Unidos), not United States of America (Estados Unidos de América), and that America never refers to the country in English. They didn’t appreciate when I asked why in international sporting events the Americans’ shirts always say USA and why the supporters chant “U-S-A” all the time.
Languages are weird. If you’re learning a different language and try to insist that the new language behave the same as your native language, you’re going to have a hard time.
Mostly right but nobody in Latinamerica refers to themselves as American in any language. It would be weird.
That one’s a weird one. We don’t explicitly call ourselves Americans in Spanish because there’s no need to but whenever this comes up in conversation it’s generally agreed upon that we are technically Americans (and then people immediately take the opportunity to dunk on USians for appropriating the word 😅).
Yeah, that’s my point. Being part of the continent is something that almost never comes up. We call ourselves whatever we are and it’s never “Americanos”.
Yep. In Spain and Latin America, there is no separation between North and South. Its just one continent: América
Most romance languages follow that. The 5 rings in the Olympics logo are meant to be continents.
Antarctica is severely underrepresented in the Olympics. Not a single medal.
The USA isn’t the only America nor the only United States. Maybe when the government collapses we can come up with a better name.
North America isn’t even the first place to be called America
Well, they’re in South America
Right? Continent or not has nothing to do with it.
And yet when you tell people that you mean south americans when you say americans they always freak out.
Do those same people freak out when you refer to Mexicans or Canadians as Americans?
It might not be a North/South continent thing.
Yeah, that’s really because the USA doesn’t really have a name, just a description.
They may eventually admit they know it’s technically correct, but you take your life in your hands if you try telling a Canadian that they are “American.” Well, not your life, but they’ll probably stop talking to you for a little while.
I think it’s one of those “technically” things, that isn’t useful.
Someone from The Americas is American, technically. That’s how language works.
But I’d venture* that 97.3% of people mean United States when they say “Americans”, or better, it’s what people mean 97.3% of the time. The only time I’ve seen people bring it up is when they’re from a South American country.
So I’d say context and scale of detail/granularity influence the meaning in the moment.
*Totally Made Up Stats
I try to explain this to people…
You mean US citizens. I’ve had “Americans” chime in on that as well, when I explained that for people who are not from the US, that “America” is not just the US of A but all of the Americas, and that Americans are not just people from the US either.
Not just US citizens, but specifically the Anglophone world as a whole. I’ve been to other English-speaking country where citizens of the USA are commonly referred to as “Americans” (when they’re not called Yanks) while the continents are called “The Americas”.
I also colloquially know that the name of the country in Japanese is simply “America” as well with its citizens just called “America-jin”
The relevant Wikipedia article seems to have some interesting insights as to which major world languages opt for which options, but it doesn’t seem to be an overly long list of examples.
Well, smart Americans call themselves Americans too, and dumb Americans call themselves Americans, even Usamericans call themselves Americans ;-)
there’s also like 5 definitions of “species”. Sometimes what seem like simple concepts are hard to pin down
Not always, I’m simple and easy to pin down.
And New Zealand is its own continent! I like that definition
I’m not sure New Zealand is real. It’s not on my maps.
Oh, it’s real. I’ve been there. Beautiful place.
Maybe you need newer maps?
Whoosh :(
