What Is The Size Of South America In Comparison To The Other Continents

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: General Geography

Colour-coded regions of the globe based on the 7 commonly-recognised continents

Dymaxion map by Buckminster Fuller shows land masses with minimal distortion every bit near one continuous continent

Geographical regions used by the United Nations for statistical purposes

A continent is ane of several big areas of land on Earth, which are identified by convention rather than any strict criteria. The specific areas of state vary, but seven areas are ordinarily reckoned as continents - they are, in guild of size, Asia, Africa, N America, South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia.

Plate tectonics is the geological theory and written report of the move, standoff and division of continents, earlier known equally continental migrate.

The term "the Continent" (capitalized), used predominantly in the British Isles, means Continental Europe, that is, mainland Europe.

Definitions and application

"Continents are understood to be large, continuous, detached masses of country, ideally separated by expanses of water." However many of the vii most normally recognized continents are identified by convention rather than adherence to the ideal criterion that each be a detached landmass, separated by water from others. Too the criterion that each be a continuous landmass is frequently overlooked by the inclusion of the continental shelf and oceanic islands.

Extent of continents

The narrowest meaning of continent is that of a continuous area of country or mainland, with the coastline and any land boundaries forming the edge of the continent. In this sense the term continental Europe is used to refer to mainland Europe, excluding islands such equally the British Isles, and the term continent of Australia may refer to the mainland of Australia, excluding Tasmania.

From the perspective of geology or physical geography, continent may be extended across the confines of continuous dry land to include the shallow, submerged adjacent expanse (the continental shelf) and the islands on the shelf ( continental islands), as they are structurally role of the continent. From this perspective the edge of the continental shelf is the true edge of the continent, every bit shorelines vary with changes in sea level. In this sense the British Isles are part of Europe, and Australia and the island of New Guinea together form a continent ( Australia-New Guinea).

As a cultural construct, the concept of a continent may go beyond the continental shelf to include oceanic islands and continental fragments. In this fashion, Iceland may be considered part of Europe and Madagascar part of Africa. Extrapolating the concept to its extreme, some geographers take Australia and all the islands of Oceania (or sometimes Australasia) to be equivalent to a continent, allowing the entire country surface of the Earth to be divided into continents or quasi continents.

Separation of continents

The ideal criterion that each continent be a discrete landmass is unremarkably disregarded in favour of more than arbitrary, historical conventions. Of the vii most normally recognized continents, just Antarctica and Commonwealth of australia are separated from other continents.

Several continents are defined not as absolutely distinct bodies only as "more or less discrete masses of land." Asia and Africa are joined by the Isthmus of Suez, and N America and South America by the Isthmus of Panama. Both these isthmuses are very narrow in comparison with the bulk of the landmasses they join.

The sectionalization of the landmass of Eurasia into the separate continents of Asia and Europe is an anomaly with no footing in concrete geography. The separation is maintained for historical and cultural reasons. An alternative view is that Eurasia is a single continent, i of vi continents in total. This view is held by some geographers and is preferred in Russian federation (which spans Asia and Europe) and Eastern Europe.

N America and South America are now treated every bit separate continents in much of Western Europe, Cathay, and most native English-speaking countries. Notwithstanding in earlier times they were viewed as a single continent known every bit America or, to avoid ambiguity with the United States of America, as the Americas. They are still viewed as a single continent, one of six in total, in Latin America, Iberia, Italy and some other parts of Europe.

When continents are defined equally discrete landmasses, embracing all the contiguous state of a body, and so Asia, Europe and Africa form a single continent known past various names such as Africa-Eurasia. This produces a 4-continent model consisting of Africa-Eurasia, the Americas, Antarctica and Commonwealth of australia.

When bounding main levels were lower during the Pleistocene ice age, greater areas of continental shelf were exposed every bit dry country, forming land bridges. At this time Australia-New Guinea was a single, continuous continent. Likewise Northward America and Asia were joined by the Bering land bridge. Other islands such every bit Great Britain were joined to the mainlands of their continents. At this time there were merely iii discrete continents: Africa-Eurasia-America, Antarctica and Australia-New Guinea.

Number of continents

There are several ways of distinguishing the continents.

Models
7 continents	Antarctica	Southward America	North America	Europe	Asia	Africa	Australia
6 continents	Antarctica	South America	North America	Eurasia		Africa	Australia
half-dozen continents	Antarctica	America		Europe	Asia	Africa	Australia
5 continents		America		Europe	Asia	Africa	Australia
four continents	Antarctica	America		Africa-Eurasia			Australia

The 7-continent model is usually taught in Western Europe, China, and well-nigh native English-speaking countries. The 6-continent combined-Eurasia model is preferred by the geographic community, Russia, Eastern Europe, and Nippon. The six-continent combined-America model is taught in Latin America, Iberia, Italy and another parts of Europe. The v-continent model which ignores Antarctica is the ground for the 5 rings of the Olympic symbol.

Oceania or Australasia are sometimes used in place of Commonwealth of australia. For example, the Atlas of Canada lists seven continents and names Oceania.

Size and population

Continents ranked past size and population

Size
continent	surface area (km²)
Africa-Eurasia	84 580 000
Eurasia	54 210 000
Asia	43 810 000
Americas	42 330 000
Africa	30 370 000
North America	24 490 000
South America	17 840 000
Antarctica	thirteen 720 000
Europe	10 400 000
Oceania	9 010 000
Australia	8 470 000

Population
continent	approx. population	percent
Africa-Eurasia	5 400 000 000	86%
Eurasia	4 510 000 000	72%
Asia	three 800 000 000	60%
Africa	890 000 000	14%
Americas	886 000 000	fourteen%
Europe	710 000 000	11%
North America	515 000 000	8%
S America	371 000 000	6%
Oceania	35 800 000	0.v%
Australia	24 700 000	0.3%
Antarctica	one 000	0.00002%

Other "continents"

Certain parts of continents are recognized every bit subcontinents, specially those on different tectonic plates to the residual of the continent. The nigh notable examples are the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula. The large isle of Greenland, though on the North American Plate, is sometimes referred to as a subcontinent.

Some islands prevarication on sections of continental crust that take rifted and drifted autonomously from a main continental landmass. While not considered continents because of their relatively small size, they may be considered minicontinents. Republic of madagascar, the largest instance, is usually considered office of Africa but has been referred to every bit "the 8th continent". New Zealand and New Caledonia are island groups on continental chaff separate from the Commonwealth of australia-New Guinea continental shelf.

History of the concept

Early concepts of the Old World continents

The Ancient Greek geographer

Strabo holding a earth showing Europa and Asia

Medieval

T and O map showing the three continents as domains of the sons of

Noah - Sem (

Shem), Iafeth (

Japheth) and Cham (

Ham)

The first distinction betwixt continents was fabricated by ancient Greek mariners who gave the names Europe and Asia to the lands on either side of the waterways of the Aegean Sea, the Dardanelles strait, the Bounding main of Marmara, the Bosphorus strait and the Blackness Sea. The names were showtime applied just to lands near the coast and only later extended to include the hinterlands. But the sectionalisation was just carried through to the stop of navigable waterways. "... beyond that point the Hellenic geographers never succeeded in laying their finger on whatsoever inland feature in the physical landscape that could offering any convincing line for sectionalisation an indivisible Eurasia ...".

Aboriginal Greek thinkers subsequently debated whether Africa (then called Great socialist people's libyan arab jamahiriya) should be considered office of Asia or a 3rd office of the world. Partition into iii parts eventually came to predominate. From the Greek viewpoint, the Aegean Sea was the centre of the world; Asia lay to the east, Europe to the due west and north and Africa to the south. The boundaries between the continents were not fixed. Early on, the Europe-Asia boundary was taken to run from the Black Sea along the Rioni River (known then as the Phasis) in Georgia. Later it was viewed every bit running from the Black Sea through Kerch Strait, the Sea of Azov and along the Don River (known then as the Tanais) in Russia. The boundary between Asia and Africa was generally taken to be the Nile River. Herodotus in the fifth century BC, notwithstanding, objected to the unity of Egypt being split into Asia and Africa ("Libya") and took the boundary to lie along the western border of Egypt, regarding Egypt as part of Asia. He as well queried the division into three of what is really a single landmass, a debate that continues about two and a half millenia later on.

Eratosthenes, in the third century BC, noted that some geographers divided the continents past rivers (the Nile and the Don), thus considering them "islands". Others divided the continents by isthmuses, calling the continents "peninsulas". These latter geographers set the border between Europe and Asia at the isthmus betwixt the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and the border between Asia and Africa at the isthmus betwixt the Blood-red Sea and the rima oris of Lake Bardawil on the Mediterranean Ocean.

Through the Roman period and the Heart Ages, a few writers took the Isthmus of Suez as the boundary between Asia and Africa, but most writers continued to take it to be the Nile or the western edge of Egypt (Gibbon). In the Middle Ages the earth was portrayed on T and O maps, with the T representing the waters dividing the 3 continents. By the middle of the eighteenth century, "the fashion of dividing Asia and Africa at the Nile, or at the Great Catabathmus [the boundary betwixt Egypt and Libya] farther westward, had even and so scarcely passed away".

European discovery of the Americas

Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to the Due west Indies in 1492, sparking a period of European exploration of the Americas. Simply despite four voyages to the Americas, Columbus never believed he had reached a new continent – he e'er thought it was office of Asia.

In 1501, Amerigo Vespucci and Gonçalo Coelho attempted to sail effectually the southern terminate of the Asian mainland into the Indian Ocean. On reaching the coast of Brazil, they sailed a long way south along the declension of South America, confirming that this was a land of continental proportions and that it extended much further south than Asia was known to. On return to Europe, an business relationship of the voyage, chosen Mundus Novus ("New World"), was published nether Vespucci'south proper noun in 1502 or 1503, although it seems that information technology had additions or alterations by another author. Regardless of who penned the words, Mundus Novus attributed Vespucci with saying, "I accept discovered a continent in those southern regions that is inhabited by more numerous people and animals than our Europe, or Asia or Africa", the first known explicit identification of role of the Americas as a continent like the other three.

Universalis Cosmographia, Waldseemüller's 1507 world map which was the first to testify the Americas separate from Asia

Within a few years the name "New World" began appearing as a proper noun for South America on earth maps, such as the Oliveriana (Pesaro) map of around 1504–1505. Maps of this time though still showed North America continued to Asia and showed South America as a separate land.

In 1507 Martin Waldseemüller published a world map, Universalis Cosmographia, which was the first to show Due north and South America as split from Asia and surrounded past h2o. A modest inset map above the main map explicitly showed for the first time the Americas being east of Asia and separated from Asia by an ocean, as opposed to just placing the Americas on the left end of the map and Asia on the right end. In the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, Waldseemüller noted that the earth is divided into four parts, Europe, Asia, Africa and the 4th part which he named "America" afterwards Amerigo Vespucci'southward first proper name. On the map, the word "America" was placed on role of South America.

The word continent

From the 1500s the English substantive continent was derived from the term continent state, meaning continuous or continued land and translated from the Latin terra continens. The substantive was used to mean "a connected or continuous tract of land" or mainland. It was not applied just to very large areas of land — in the 1600s, references were made to the continents (or mainlands) of Kent, Ireland and Wales and in 1745 to Sumatra. The word continent was used in translating Greek and Latin writings well-nigh the three "parts" of the world, although in the original languages no word of exactly the same meaning as continent was used.

While continent was used on the one hand for relatively small areas of continuous land, on the other manus geographers again raised Herodotus's query about why a single large landmass should be divided into separate continents. In the mid 1600s Peter Heylin wrote in his Cosmographie that "A Continent is a great quantity of Land, not separated by any Bounding main from the balance of the Earth, as the whole Continent of Europe, Asia, Africa." In 1727 Ephraim Chambers wrote in his Cyclopædia, "The world is ordinarily divided into two grand continents: the old and the new." And in his 1752 atlas, Emanuel Bowen defined a continent as "a large space of dry land comprehending many countries all joined together, without any separation past h2o. Thus Europe, Asia, and Africa is i great continent, every bit America is another." However, the old idea of Europe, Asia and Africa equally "parts" of the world ultimately persisted with these being regarded as dissever continents.

Across four continents

From the late 18th century some geographers started to regard Northward America and South America as two parts of the world, making five parts in full. Overall though the fourfold division prevailed well into the 19th century.

Europeans discovered Australia in 1606 only for some time it was taken every bit role of Asia. By the tardily 18th century some geographers considered information technology a continent in its own correct, making it the sixth (or fifth for those yet taking America as a single continent). In 1813 Samuel Butler wrote of Australia equally " New Holland, an immense island, which some geographers dignify with the appellation of another continent" and the Oxford English Dictionary was just as equivocal some decades later.

Antarctica was sighted in 1820 and described equally a continent by Charles Wilkes on the The states Exploring Expedition in 1838, the last continent to be identified, although a great "antarctic" (antipodean) landmass had been predictable for millennia. An 1849 atlas labelled Antarctica as a continent but few atlases did so until after Earth War II.

The Olympic symbol of five rings representing five continents

From the mid-19th century, The states atlases more commonly treated North and Due south America as separate continents, while atlases published in Europe unremarkably considered them one continent. However it was still not uncommon for United States atlases to treat them as one continent up till World War II. The Olympic symbol, devised in 1913, has five rings representing the five continents, with America being treated every bit one continent and Antarctica not included.

From the 1950s, virtually United States geographers divided America in two and, with the addition of Antarctica, this made the seven-continent model. Nonetheless, this partition of America never appealed to Latin America, which saw itself spanning an America that was a single landmass, and there the conception of six continents remains, equally it does in scattered other countries such as Japan.

Geology

Geologists use the term continent in a unlike manner than geographers. Rather than but identifying large land masses, geologists have distinct criteria for identifying continents. Continents are portions of the Earth's crust characterized by a stable platform of Precambrian metamorphic and igneous stone (typically one.five to 3.viii billion years erstwhile) largely of granitic limerick, called the craton, and a central "shield" where the craton is exposed at the surface. The craton itself is an accretionary complex of ancient mobile belts (mountain belts) from before cycles of subduction, continental standoff and break upward from plate tectonic action. An outward-thickening veneer of younger, minimally plain-featured sedimentary rock covers much of the rest of the craton. The margins of the continents are characterized by currently-agile or relatively recently active mobile belts and/or deep troughs of accumulated marine or deltaic sediments. Beyond the margin, there is either a continental shelf and driblet off to the basaltic-stone ocean basin or the margin of some other continent, depending on the electric current plate-tectonic setting of the continent. A continental boundary does not take to be a body of h2o. Over geologic time, continents are periodically submerged under big epicontinental seas, and continental collisions consequence in a continent becoming attached to some other continent. The electric current geologic era is relatively dissonant in that so much of the continental areas are "high and dry out" compared to much of geologic history.

The tectonic plates underlying the continents and oceans

It is believed that continents are accretionary crustal "rafts" which, unlike the denser basaltic chaff of the sea basins, are not subjected to destruction through the plate tectonic process of subduction. This accounts for the great age of the rocks comprising the continental cratons.

By the geologists' definition, Europe and Asia are separate continents since they have split up, singled-out ancient shield areas and a singled-out newer mobile chugalug (the Ural Mountains) forming the common margin. Also, India is a geological continent, as it contains a fundamental shield, and the geologically recent Himalaya mobile chugalug forms its northern margin. North America and South America are separate continents, the connecting isthmus being largely the consequence of volcanism from relatively recent subduction tectonics. Just the Northward American continent also includes Greenland, which is a portion of Canadian Shield, and the mobile belt forming its western margin includes the easternmost portion of the Asian country mass.