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It is surprising that a lot of educated folks don't know about this. I always run into folks who think Greenland is the biggest island. Edit: on Australia bein
by manojlds 10y ago
It is surprising that a lot of educated folks don't know about this. I always run into folks who think Greenland is the biggest island.
Edit: on Australia being continent - now I come across as a fool. But I hope people understood what I meant. Also, I have had to argue against folks who said Greenland should also be a continent since it is bigger than Australia.
- stuckagain 10y agoGreenland is the biggest island, by a large factor.
- bluedevil2k 10y agoIs Australia not an island?
- vkou 10y agoIt's a continent. Otherwise, we may as well call North America an island.
- peeters 10y agoWell, since you bring it up, Australia isn't connected to another continent by land like North America is (as are Europe, Africa, and Asia). You'd have to say "the Americas" are an island, or "Afro-Eurasia"
- thrownblown 10y agoYou people are silly. If Australia is an island, then Antarctica wins. 'Nuff said. ANTARCTICA 5,400,000 sq mi AUSTRALIA 2,969,900 sq mi GREENLAND 836,330 sq mi
- peeters 10y ago...I never said it wasn't? I was just objecting to calling North America an island.
- beojan 10y agoHe was referring to the fact that Antarctica isn't connected to any other continent either.
- peeters 10y agoI know, and I never said it was--hence my confusion at being called silly for my post (which was purely objecting to calling North America an island, since it IS connected by land).
- manojlds 10y agoHow? Isn't it connected to South America?
- loeg 10y agoModulo the Panama canal.
- mturmon 10y agoWhat about the two non-swinging bridges across the Panama Canal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Bridge,_Panama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Bridge,_Panama) -- soon to be three? If the man-made separation counts, the man-made connection should too.
- baddox 10y agoIt's not man-made land though.
- vkou 10y agoIf we want to be pedantic about whether or not the Panama Canal turns North America into an island or not, we can change the argument, and ask whether or not the Americas are an island.
- codingdave 10y agoWhat about just the eastern USA, then? It is fully split by rivers and lakes to the north and west, and oceans to the east and south...
- Retric 10y agoGreenland @839,999 square miles is the biggest island. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001783.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001783.html Unless your talking about Australia which is ~3.5x a big. (2,969,907 sq miles)
- bane 10y agoI'm actually talking about all of the Africa-Eurasia super-continent.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 10y agoAccording to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_by_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_by_area Greenland is the biggest island.
- manojlds 10y ago> even though arguments can be made whether it is technically a continent, or merely part of a larger continent also called Australia A technicality. While people thinking Greenland is bigger than Australia is not, which is the point I was trying to get across.
- vkou 10y agoGreenland is the biggest island. Australia is a continent.
- halomru 10y agoThere isn't really a single universally accepted list of continents. Some count Australia as continent, some count it as part of Oceania. And some define the continent Australia as the country Australia plus all those islands that would otherwise be Oceania.
- reality_czech 10y agoActually Australia is a dwarf continentoid.
- worldsayshi 10y agoI'm a bit surprised the other way around. Greenland is bigger than I thought when I move it over Europe. And Iceland too.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago> It is surprising that a lot of educated folks don't know about this. I always run into folks who think Greenland is the biggest island. If it's the only projection you've ever seen - and globes aren't all that common - it's a reasonable misconception. Kind of makes you wonder what other projections we're carrying around in our heads.
- theoh 10y agoWell, speaking for myself, definitely not the Futamura projections. Way too high a level of abstraction to remember.
- protomyth 10y agoDon't worry manojlds, I'm sure the Pluto people will back you up and demote Australia. I often wonder if it will matter in a couple of years. If we actually get to the point where walls are displays, then I would expect most schools will have a globe projected on the wall instead of a map. How long until we start with 3D animations instead of 2D drawings?
- howawaygoog 10y agosome definitions are arbitrary, for some people America is one continent, for some there are two, it's human-based, whatever is established in a culture, not math.
- sqeaky 10y agoThis is just a matter of semantics and word choice? Why isn't Eurasia (or Afro-Eurasia before the Suez canal) the largest island? Why not Greenland?