this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
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I’ve always grown up with the idea that Europe is a continent, but if I’m not mistaken there is no geographical basis for that. See for example Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasia. But yeah, we all call Europe a continent because of historical reasons and I guess that’s still taught in schools and it makes sense in that context. It’s a matter of definition. In the context of driving long distances this made up border has no meaning of course, which is why brought it up.
Most English-speaking countries recognize seven regions as continents. In order from largest to smallest in area, these seven regions are Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.
Now as to how anyone detailed the discussion this far, successfully, is beyond me. Actually everything in your comment after the link is nonsense too.
If you don’t mind, can you then tell me why Europe should be considered its own continent separate from Asia, apart from the fact that we’ve all agreed on that a long time ago? If you check here, they actually agree with it being for historical reasons (check the “Asia and Europe” section): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundaries_between_the_continents. We’ve all agreed that it’s a continent, so it’s a continent, that’s not something I’m refuting. I’m also aware that calling Eurasia a continent is in that sense false. But you seem to be confident that my statement that it’s for historical reasons rather than geographical ones is nonsense. I’m open to learning something new today.
In the context of the original post, it’s completely irrelevant. Comparing Europe or Eurasia as a continent to the US as a country is not a valid comparison and I’ve said so in my first comment. I could’ve left out that part completely without changing my point.
Well, definitions are typically things people agreed upon, at one time or another. So what we have now, generally started from what everyone agreed upon during the antique times. Then, during the Renaissance times the definition expanded to cover all "four corners" of Earth. Australia was also included later, as time went by.
Physically Europe and Asia are a single continent, sure, and when discussing that, we use the name Eurasia. Funnily enough, Africa used to be considered a part of the Asian continent. In any case, definitions shift as the humanity learned more and we needed terms to discuss certain areas.
My point is: we aren't keeping definitions for historical reasons, even though there is history behind the terms. If we were to divide the globe in to continents for the first time ever, it would stand to reason the areas would be split similarly as they were, because geographically it still makes the most sense.
If we went just by tectonic plates or some similar way to determine continents, I guess we could get more specific easily. But in the context of language and understanding, combining south and north america to a single thing, or europe and asia, makes little sense.