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Post by Feologild Oakes on Nov 30, 2020 18:06:20 GMT
What is the only country in the world that is the largest country in two different continents?
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Post by barfholomew on Nov 30, 2020 18:52:08 GMT
Russia?
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Nov 30, 2020 19:08:38 GMT
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Post by gameboy on Nov 30, 2020 19:37:33 GMT
Technically Europe and Asia are one continent as they are connected by land and neither is completely surrounded by ocean.
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Nov 30, 2020 21:34:13 GMT
Technically Europe and Asia are one continent as they are connected by land and neither is completely surrounded by ocean. Technically Europe, Asia and Africa is one continent, and so is North and South America.
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Post by gameboy on Dec 1, 2020 3:02:05 GMT
Technically Europe and Asia are one continent as they are connected by land and neither is completely surrounded by ocean. Technically Europe, Asia and Africa is one continent, and so is North and South America. No, there are very clear separations between Africa and Eurasia and between North and South America. You're confusing hemispheres with continents.
But Eurasia is one continent.
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Post by Schwarzwald Magnus on Dec 1, 2020 6:36:45 GMT
Continents are an abstract concept. It's a combination of geographic, historical and cultural differences.
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Post by gameboy on Dec 1, 2020 17:06:14 GMT
Continents are an abstract concept. It's a combination of geographic, historical and cultural differences. No, not to geologists or an amateur cartographer like myself. There is a defined geographical criteria. A continent must be bordered extensively on all sides by ocean, not mountains.
So you might quibble and say that Africa is joined to Eurasia by the Sinai peninsula; or North and South America are joined by the isthmus of Panama. But those are rather narrow pieces of land and don't change the fact that these are distinct land masses on a grand scale. The OP is confusing hemispheres with continents. Feologild often gets confused!
Unless you want to become a complete continental nihilist!!!, geographers agree that there are 6 continents:
Eurasia Africa Australia North America South America Antarctica
It was conventional in the past to separate Europe because of white supremacism and colonial arrogance, nothing more.
If you're going to claim the Ural Mountains create two continents out of Eurasia, then you may as well say the Sahara Desert creates two continents - North Africa & South Africa; or the Andes Mountains creates two continents - South West America & South East America.
Schwarzy, it's complete unmitigated BALDERDASH!!!
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Post by Schwarzwald Magnus on Dec 2, 2020 6:23:19 GMT
gameboySo what about islands that people consider part of those continents? The British Isles, Madagascar, Baffin Island, the Malay Archipelago, Japan...
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Post by gameboy on Dec 2, 2020 7:55:37 GMT
gameboy So what about islands that people consider part of those continents? The British Isles, Madagascar, Baffin Island, the Malay Archipelago, Japan... I suppose islands close to the continent can be tied to that continent. That's another reason Europe is not a continent though, it's a region. Europe also includes the British Isles by everyone's definition.
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Post by Schwarzwald Magnus on Dec 2, 2020 8:33:50 GMT
gameboy So what about islands that people consider part of those continents? The British Isles, Madagascar, Baffin Island, the Malay Archipelago, Japan... I suppose islands close to the continent can be tied to that continent. That's another reason Europe is not a continent though, it's a region. Europe also includes the British Isles by everyone's definition. How do you differentiate between continents and islands? Why wouldn't then Australia be an island of Asia? What about all the little islands in the Pacific Ocean? What about Hawaii? Or Greenland? If size is the key, then Eurasia is the only continent and everything else is just a big or bigger island all around the world.
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Post by gameboy on Dec 2, 2020 9:33:10 GMT
I suppose islands close to the continent can be tied to that continent. That's another reason Europe is not a continent though, it's a region. Europe also includes the British Isles by everyone's definition. How do you differentiate between continents and islands? Why wouldn't then Australia be an island of Asia? What about all the little islands in the Pacific Ocean? What about Hawaii? Or Greenland? If size is the key, then Eurasia is the only continent and everything else is just a big or bigger island all around the world. It's all a matter of size. A continent is huge and an island is comparatively small. For example, Greenland is considered an island at 836,000 square miles while Australia is almost 3 million square miles. It's easy to make a cut off and say Greenland is an island while Australia is a continent.
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Post by Schwarzwald Magnus on Dec 2, 2020 9:38:32 GMT
How do you differentiate between continents and islands? Why wouldn't then Australia be an island of Asia? What about all the little islands in the Pacific Ocean? What about Hawaii? Or Greenland? If size is the key, then Eurasia is the only continent and everything else is just a big or bigger island all around the world. It's all a matter of size. A continent is huge and an island is comparatively small. For example, Greenland is considered an island at 836,000 square miles while Australia is almost 3 million square miles. It's easy to make a cut off and say Greenland is an island while Australia is a continent. Fine, but remember this is arbitrary, you wanted a geologic definition at first. A cut off size is a human invention and decision, just like politics and culture mentioned above.
Also, would Hawaii be apart of Asia or North America? Are you willing to disown a state? Greenland is geographically apart of North America but owned by Denmark.
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Post by gameboy on Dec 2, 2020 9:43:55 GMT
It's all a matter of size. A continent is huge and an island is comparatively small. For example, Greenland is considered an island at 836,000 square miles while Australia is almost 3 million square miles. It's easy to make a cut off and say Greenland is an island while Australia is a continent. Fine, but remember this is arbitrary, you wanted a geologic definition at first. A cut off size is a human invention and decision, just like politics and culture mentioned above. No, the difference is obvious and real. Look at the difference in size between the world's largest island Greenland at 800,000 square miles, and the world's smallest continent Australia at 3 million square millions. There is no other land mass with a size between the two.
And all language is arbitrary when you get down to it. Language is a human invention.
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Dec 2, 2020 9:55:05 GMT
People in different countries also teach continent differently, some teach 4 continents and some teach 7. And there are different variations of them In Norway when i went to school in the 90s we where thought that the world had 5 continents Europe, Africa, Asia and America. I am not sure if they still teach that. You have two versions of the five continents and you have two versions of the six continents. Seven continents- Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Antarctica and Australia Six Continents-Africa, Eurasia, North America, South America, Antarctica and Australia Six Continents-Africa, Asia, Europe, America, Antarctica and Australia Five Continents-Africa, Asia, Europe, America and Australia Five Continents-Africa, Eurasia, America, Antarctica and Australia Four Continents- Afro-Eurasia, America, Antarctica and Australia. The seven-continent model is usually taught in most English-speaking countries including the United States, United Kingdom[37] and Australia,[38] and also in China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, and parts of Western Europe. The six-continent combined-Eurasia model is mostly used in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Japan. The six-continent combined-America model is often used in Latin America,[39] Greece,[22] and countries that speak Romance languages. The United Nations[23] and in the Olympic Charter[24] in its description of the Olympic flag derived the five-continent model from the combined-America model by excluding Antarctica as uninhabited. As previously mentioned, some geographers use the name Oceania for a region including most of the island countries and territories in the Pacific Ocean as well as the continent of Australia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent |
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Post by Schwarzwald Magnus on Dec 2, 2020 9:55:46 GMT
Fine, but remember this is arbitrary, you wanted a geologic definition at first. A cut off size is a human invention and decision, just like politics and culture mentioned above. No, the difference is obvious and real. Look at the difference in size between the world's largest island Greenland at 800,000 square miles, and the world's smallest continent Australia at 3 million square millions. There is no other land mass with a size between the two.
And all language is arbitrary when you get down to it. Language is a human invention.
Even if the jump is big, you're still deciding to separate land masses surrounded by water into categories nature doesn't care about. Hawaii is an important subject. Is it an island of Eurasia or North America?
Another important geographic thing to consider is tectonic plates, they're largely underwater and they roughly, but not perfectly, match the large scale land masses.
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Post by Feologild Oakes on Dec 2, 2020 9:57:47 GMT
Technically, Hawaii isn't in Asia, but neither is it geographically fixed to North America. Because it's a chain of islands, belonging to Polynesia, it is not part of any continent.
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Post by gameboy on Dec 2, 2020 17:21:45 GMT
No, the difference is obvious and real. Look at the difference in size between the world's largest island Greenland at 800,000 square miles, and the world's smallest continent Australia at 3 million square millions. There is no other land mass with a size between the two.
And all language is arbitrary when you get down to it. Language is a human invention.
Even if the jump is big, you're still deciding to separate land masses surrounded by water into categories nature doesn't care about. Hawaii is an important subject. Is it an island of Eurasia or North America?
Another important geographic thing to consider is tectonic plates, they're largely underwater and they roughly, but not perfectly, match the large scale land masses.
Nature doesn't give a shit what humans call things. That was my point about language being arbitrary.
But as humans we have to speak in terms of things which others will understand. We call the six biggest land masses "continents" and they dwarf all the other land masses which we call "islands". Tectonic places correspond to hemispheres, right?
Hawaii is in the middle of the ocean. It's not a part of any continent. Oceania is what they call all the islands in the Pacific Ocean - divided loosely between Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia.
Oceania! When's the last time you read Orwell?
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