Europe being on a different continent than Asia always seemed like bullshit. I can forgive the isthmuses, but Eurasia feels like it's a thing to me.
this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2026
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But then you run into the issue that the very concept of continent was invented to differentiate Europe and Asia (and Africa).
Eh, words change and sometimes terms outlive their etymology or grow beyond it. We "hang up the phone" but no phone these days is actually hung up. 🤷
That's literally the same thing, we kept the expression even when we know it isn't accurate any more, because we still have the need to express the original meaning.
If anything, we should split Asia in more subcontinents.
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The difference between Europe and Asia should also apply to Asia and India.
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Same, if they're different continents then Africa is also more than one continent
The Romans divided the world into three equal landmasses before they understood how it was actually laid out and it stuck.
Definitely not the Romans. It may have stuck because of them, but the Greeks divided the world that way long before Rome left Italy.
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There's one continent, it's called the crust of the Earth. There's some water on top of it in some places.
This comment has been flagged as DEI /s
Continental crusts are an observable and measurable thing
They contain higher concentrations of aluminum whereas you find higher concentrations of magnesium outside of those crusts.
They are geological features and should be categorized accordingly. Eurasia makes way more sense than Europe being its own special thing... Except Europe, historically, likes to pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist in their concepts and as such always considers itself special
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Stop doing maps. Years of cartography and this is what they want you believe? /s -ish.
Cartography always has a hidden set of assumptions and goals and because political geography as infrastructure isn't exactly a consensus topic either, shenanigans like this are pretty much expectable in geography.
Honestly, the biggest two problems I've encountered are:
- "Oceania" is not a continent. It's like seven smaller continental plates. Zealandia is more of a continent than Europe is. Similarly, Greenland is also more of a continent than Europe is.
- if you're going to count Europe, you also have to count India, and in reality, we should probably just talk about cratons and plates, not "continents".
Okay, new scheme: Every continental shield is a continent. Everything not on one is terra incognita. Continental platforms are just delusional sea floor.
Certainly that classification won't lead to any confusion.
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I don't believe in continents. I'm incontinent.
Of course there isn't. There are 10 billion people on earth. I even disagree with myself on the matter.
PS: TIL too.
Closer to 8 billion
There was a study last year saying that 8 billion could be super underestimating the world population.
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There's between 3 and 500. Since it's statistically unlikely that the correct number would be at either extreme, the most likely correct number of continents would be somewhere around 250, with a margin of error of approximately 245.
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In the great words of Atlas Pro after going into excruciating detail on why no answer is more correct He said:
So gow many continents are there?
"Obviously six"
No further clarification was given.
I always assumed North America was Canada, America was the USA/Mexico and South America was Brazil/Venezuela.
If you accept the 7 continent model, there are 23 countries in North America.
Europe isn't a continent, it's a political entity. A continent is geographic. EurAsia is a continent.
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imo europe is a colonialist excuse, not a continent
Isn't it tectonic separation? Like the plates? 🤔
Yes. Except for the exceptions, which are the exceptions.
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It's wild how much "basic science" is just some pale bro's wacky idea.
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