Our accepted definition of what a continent is sucks. Why is Europe considered a continent but India is not? Every argument for Europe being a separate continent applies even better to India.
Europe just wanted to be special and controlled science at the time, change my mind.
In contrast, the present eastern boundary of Europe partially adheres to the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, which is somewhat arbitrary and inconsistent compared to any clear-cut definition of the term “continent”.
The current division of Eurasia into two continents now reflects East-West cultural, linguistic and ethnic differences which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line.
There’s really no physical reasoning for it. You can read on in that article for the historical basis if you want (basically, Homer and other Greeks coined it, and it just kind of stuck), but it’s really quite arbitrary where scientists actually draw the line.
My bad, should clarify I was referring to this specifically:
In geology, a continent is defined as “one of Earth’s major landmasses, including both dry land and continental shelves”. The geological continents correspond to seven large areas of continental crust that are found on the tectonic plates, but exclude small continental fragments such as Madagascar that are generally referred to as microcontinents. Continental crust is only known to exist on Earth.
Honestly, that would be a much more satisfactory definition than the current one, which seems to be “large landmass bigger than Greenland with logical separations when they’re too big.” What I really don’t understand is when people say Europe and Asia are separate, but N. America and S. America are combined, that’s logically inconsistent.
If we’re going based on landmass, shouldn’t Russia be its own continent? Russia is almost twice as big as Europe, and it’s culturally unique compared to its neighbors.
Yup, but which two depends on how you define “continent.” It either spans Europe and Asia if you go by common definitions of continents, or it spans Eurasia and North America if you look at tectonic continental plates.
Our accepted definition of what a continent is sucks. Why is Europe considered a continent but India is not? Every argument for Europe being a separate continent applies even better to India.
Europe just wanted to be special and controlled science at the time, change my mind.
I propose we reclassify india as a dwarf continent
the pluto of continents
It has to do with geology. Europe basically swallowed up and mixed in with another continent a long time ago after Pangea broke up
it really doesn’t:
There’s really no physical reasoning for it. You can read on in that article for the historical basis if you want (basically, Homer and other Greeks coined it, and it just kind of stuck), but it’s really quite arbitrary where scientists actually draw the line.
My bad, should clarify I was referring to this specifically:
In geology, a continent is defined as “one of Earth’s major landmasses, including both dry land and continental shelves”. The geological continents correspond to seven large areas of continental crust that are found on the tectonic plates, but exclude small continental fragments such as Madagascar that are generally referred to as microcontinents. Continental crust is only known to exist on Earth.
If we’re talking about tectonic plates, then:
We’d end up with the following continents:
Image.
Honestly, that would be a much more satisfactory definition than the current one, which seems to be “large landmass bigger than Greenland with logical separations when they’re too big.” What I really don’t understand is when people say Europe and Asia are separate, but N. America and S. America are combined, that’s logically inconsistent.
india has HALF the landmass…seriously…thats not a continent
If we’re going based on landmass, shouldn’t Russia be its own continent? Russia is almost twice as big as Europe, and it’s culturally unique compared to its neighbors.
well it spans two continents…and also it is russia, so.
Yup, but which two depends on how you define “continent.” It either spans Europe and Asia if you go by common definitions of continents, or it spans Eurasia and North America if you look at tectonic continental plates.