what are the continents|
How The Continents Are Actually Divided
if i ask you to choose the continents in this map how many would you pick some of you would say is five other six and i know many of you would say seven but what if i told you you are all right and maybe also wrong okay okay let me explain this is how the continents are actually divided but first let's see what the definition of continent tells us the general definition says that a continent is one of several large land masses ideally separated by expenses of water that's not very helpful at all because there are massive islands greenland is huge and it's not considered a continent.
Even if it fits the definition but australia is considered one at least maybe for you it is for me this is just a country in a larger continent called oceania and here's where everything gets mixed up because it's not that someone is right or wrong we just learn different continental models in reality there is no definitive way to decide a number of continents the ones that we have are actually a little arbitrary the border between asia and europe has changed a lot over the years just because so what are these continental models well the main ones are just called four five six six again but different and seven so let's see how they look the first continent model adheres strictly to the definition and combines all of europe asia and africa into one super continent some called afro-eurasia all of america gets combined into well america and it takes australia slash oceania and antarctica as the other two and as far as i saw no one really uses it is just for purists of definitions tell me in the comments if i mistake him because i couldn't see evidence of any real use the five continent model is the one used by the u.n and the olympics it takes into account only the inhabited continents which for this model are america as just one europe africa asia and oceania the olympic level represents this with its five rings the sixth continent model comes in two variants the first is the one used in latin america former french colonies greece and countries with romance languages it's just like the five continent model but with the addition of antarctica the other one is mainly used in former soviet union countries eastern europe japan and russia in this one america got separated but asia and europe merch into the super continent eurasia the last one the seven continent model is used in english-speaking countries parts of western europe india pakistan the philippines and china this is the one you're probably familiar with in this one america gets separated into north and south europe africa and asia are its own continent.
Oceania gets demoted into just australia and its bodies so what will this mess why are australia and oceania separated well to put it simply because no one seems to agree on anything some say oceania is a continent contained in australia and the pacific islands others that australia is the continent in the cultural region of oceania which contains australasia melanesia micronesia and polynesia some of the debate where exactly new zealand falls in not deciding if it's in australasia or polynesia well this is a mess and no wonder if we superficially search on google the definition of continent we see this generally identified by convention rather than strict criteria well that explains why everyone seems to have their own i will deviate here a little and do something that i haven't done in any of my videos so far i'll give you my opinion and here it is continents shouldn't have to be an arbitrary division decided by one's culture we know a lot about the planet's cross compared to when we first started to name the damn things so maybe we could divide the continents based on their tectonic plates because in the end they'll move anyway taking their piece of land with them let's go back to this map if we add the tectonic plates that we know of it looks something like this let's get rid of the little ones and well this is awkward we cannot just have india and the arabian peninsula on the run just because so let's leave him as we currently do now and we end up with something like this eurasia apparently is a thing and i guess north and south america are separated in the end as for australia it's its own continent and includes new guinea and new zealand partially if this looks familiar it's because it's exactly how one of the six continent models is divided maybe i should have mentioned that the 2-6 continent models are named the traditional model and the geological model well this is awkward because i was going to conclude that it wasn't about being right or wrong that it depended on the perspective we were raised into and that we should have that in mind when looking at other people's knowledge and opinions but i guess in the end we are all wrong except for japanese and russians
