continents are political and made up
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As kids, we are taught that continents are large, continuous land masses surrounded by oceans.
Even kids poke holes at this notion, it collapses as soon as you look at a globe. Why are Europe and Asia not one single continent? What is North America a continent?
Geological reasons are typically invoked, citing tectonic plaques or the movement of the continents across millennia. But none of those explanations provide a unifying criteria that arrives at any of the commonly used lists of continents.
Here’s the proper list of continents on Earth, as far as I understand:
- Africa
- Antarctica
- Eurasia, a single tectonic plate.
- North America, including Greenland, as it sits on its own tectonic plate.
- South America
- Australia, rather than Oceania, which is water-dominated.