My first introduction to how ludicrous this all is was as a child encountering people who seriously called people who live on the same tectonic plate as us, who used to be directly connected to us with a land bridge only a few 10kA ago, and who have no continental slope or suchlike between us, "the continent".

If you thought that the Map Men were the only people challenging the Anglophones on this, with so much YouTube educational content in English rather parrotting the 7 continents dogma, be prepared for a YouTube channel that is actually called "Well ... actually" having got there years before. (-:

* https://youtube.com/watch?v=dwPuEPjX36E

In France they teach 5 continents. Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australia.

I was a language learner there and explained the US 7 continent system. The South Americans in my class said we were racist for splitting North and South America. I told them as far as I knew the split was between Venezuela and Columbia, had something to do with tectonic plates, and that and North America included lots of Spanish speaking countries.

I guess they decided we weren't racist after all. At least not because of that.

I've generally thought that the 6 continent Eurasian model made the most sense. While reading this article, I've decided to start calling Europe a or the sub-continent now.

"incontinent" also has a pretty loose definition.

> 6 continents (Russia/ Eastern Europe): Africa, Eurasia, Europe, North America, South America, Antartica, Australia

Should the article delete Europe from that list?

The definitions are loose enough, I'm kind of surprised nobody has tried making an end run on the whole thing and getting Pluto declared a continent.

Good article.

But it begs the question, are "continents" even a useful category? What value do we get from acknowledging the concept?

Europe is a continent because Europeans invented continents.

There are a variety of definitions, and for a number of definitions my country hints at claiming an entire “continent” [1] Not actually pressing a claim diplomatically but also not dismissing the idea of a claim.

Of course there is zero chance New Zealand would ever challenge Australia or France for territory, and little chance we could ever claim economic rights.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zealandia

The list of cratons on Wikipedia includes entries for Antarctica and Australia while omitting Greenland. I couldn't find a technical definition of a craton, but to geologists a continent must contain at least one craton to qualify.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shields_and_cratons

Same reason there are still 5 senses, because it's easier to teach than the truth

Good question.

Probably nobody knows.

I figure it's been stable for quite a long time, and if number 8 were to show up any time soon it would be a major Earth-shaking event :)