6 continents are there

Sounds confusing, right? Here's how it all sorts out. This last characteristic is the most controversial, according to the Geological Society of America , leading to confusion among experts as to how many continents there are. What's more, there is no global governing body that has established a consensus definition. But using the criteria defined above, many geologists say there are six continents: Africa, Antarctica, Australia, North and South America, and Eurasia. In many parts of Europe, students are taught that there are only six continents, and teachers count North and South America as one continent.

Why the difference? From a geological perspective, Europe and Asia are one large landmass. Dividing them into two separate continents is more of a geopolitical consideration because Russia occupies so much of the Asian continent and historically has been politically isolated from the powers of Western Europe, such as Great Britain, Germany, and France.

Recently, some geologists have begun arguing that room should be made for a "new" continent called Zealandia. This landmass lies off the eastern coast of Australia. New Zealand and a few minor islands are the only peaks above water; the remaining 94 percent is submerged beneath the Pacific Ocean. Geographers divide the planet into regions for ease of study.

You can also divide the Earth's major landmasses into tectonic plates, which are large slabs of solid rock. These slabs consist of both continental and oceanic crusts and are separated by fault lines. There are 15 tectonic plates in total, seven of which are roughly ten million square miles or more in size. Some argue Five cause there are five circles in Olympics flag.

Great blog here! Also your web site loads up very fast! What web host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to your host? I wish my web site loaded up as quickly as yours lol. Do you use Twitter? Can you recommend a good hosting provider at a fair price? Cheers, I appreciate it! Not to mention, their evening aerobatic sessions are a whole lot of fun to watch. I read all da comments and all are so awesome even myself I thought we have six.

U R doing a wonderful job keep it floors. Piece of writing writing is also a fun, if you be familiar with then you can write or else it is difficult to write. This post could not be written any better! Reading this post reminds me of my good old room mate!

He always kept talking about this. I will forward this page to him. Fairly certain he will have a good read. Thank you for sharing! It seems that some people e. Andres, Alba, … confuse nationality with continent of origin. I would hope that Canadians, Mexicans and other North American nationalities would take issue with this matter.

America, S. If we go with the idea that there is only one America, since they are contiguous, and that Europe and Asia are just Eurasia, for the same reason, then I guess there are only 47 states in the U. We have been slowly but surely conditioned into thinking of our planet as bits: divided into continents and islands. This is a fiction and there are no divisions.

The earth as a whole IS whole. Look under the surface of any ocean and no matter how deep you go, you eventually reach the the good old solid earth.

Humans are good at dividing, at division. Try it for yourself. Pop the imaginary balloon that has been pulled over your eyes. When Columbus first set foot in the New World it was in South America and Central America, the word America was later used to refer to this new land mass.

The word America was later used to refer to North America as well. Years later, when the English colonies in what is now the U. I was also taught that there is 7 continents. Considering North and South America as one is new to me but an interesting idea.

They changed it for a new generation. However, I believe other countries are taught differently. So if you were taught 5 or 6 continents then that is what you learned and was brought up with. Every country or region has its own way of teaching subjects. The other thing I found interesting was about the Olympic Rings. This is what I was raised with and taught in school about the Olympic rings. I found it quiet interesting that others were taught that the Olympic rings were the 5 continents.

I was taught that the colors represented each color of all the flags combined in the world at the time it was created in I had to do a report on the Olympics in school. Here is truly an international symbol. The other thing I would like to address here is the question about Americans. Whether or not both or all three North, South, Central should be counting as one or two. I was raised that they are two with central America being part of South America.

Mostly because they were Latin countries and grouped better together with South America. They were owned by either Spain or Portugal. As a child that made since to me. North America was basically a free for all among the European countries. I was always jealous of South America at least they knew there ancestors were probably from Spain or Portugal. North America should actually had been owned by Greenland or Iceland. Would there be a North and South America or just one gigantic country speaking Scandinavian?

I did find this statement and is probably why I never knew about the continents on the Olympic Flag. However, no continent is represented by any specific ring. I can see why it was taught that way. By the time was in school they removed it from the handbook.

Depends on where you were grew up. When I was in school I distinctly remember being taught 5 continents. So how many continents are there then, according to the disagreeing parties? In other places in the world, North and South America are combined as one American continent while separating Europe and Asia instead. Thus, according to these two views, there should only be 6 continents. There are even geographical views that prefer the presence of both a Eurasian as well as one American continent.

These geographers therefore contend that there should only be 5 continents.