Continental crust is only known to exist on Earth. The geological continents correspond to seven large areas of continental crust that are found on the tectonic plates, but exclude small continental fragments such as Madagascar that are generally referred to as microcontinents. In geology, a continent is defined as "one of Earth's major landmasses, including both dry land and continental shelves".
Under this scheme, most of the island countries and territories in the Pacific Ocean are grouped together with the continent of Australia to form the geographical region Oceania. Oceanic islands are frequently grouped with a nearby continent to divide all the world's land into geographical regions. Different variations with fewer continents merge some of these regions examples of this are merging North America and South America into America, Asia and Europe into Eurasia, and Africa, Asia, and Europe into Afro-Eurasia. In order from largest to smallest in area, these seven regions are Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. Most English-speaking countries recognize seven regions as continents. Due to this, the number of continents varies up to seven or as few as four geographical regions are commonly regarded as continents. A continent could be a single landmass or a part of a very large landmass, as in the case of Asia or Europe.
Continents are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria. Depending on the convention and model, some continents may be consolidated or subdivided.Ī continent is any of several large geographical regions. Animated, colour-coded map showing the various continents.
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