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There isn't a formal definition of what a continent should be, the naming of these things is a bit loose. Some of it comes from geology, others the politics of
by teh_klev 5y ago
There isn't a formal definition of what a continent should be, the naming of these things is a bit loose. Some of it comes from geology, others the politics of geography.
There are such things as micro-continents (which Madagascar would fall into).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_fragment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_fragment
According to this article, sure it's Wikipedia, but I learned this in geography class at school, "Continents are the largest landmass of a particular continental plate"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island#Differentiation_from_continents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island#Differentiation_from_co...
By this "simplified" map of continental plates then the lower half of Central America is technically a continent:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics#/media/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics#/media/File:Pl...
- leereeves 5y agoQuite an interesting rabbit hole of geography, thanks for that. According to Wikipedia, Zealandia (where New Zealand is) is also an "almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust" that's half the size of Australia. And "geologists from New Zealand, New Caledonia, and Australia have concluded that Zealandia fulfills all the requirements to be considered a continent". But that "simplified" map of continental plates shows how much geologists definition of "continent" differs from the usual definition. As you said, central America and the Caribbean are on their own plate. And Asia actually contains land from four "principal" plates (Eurasian, Indian, Arabian, and part of the North American plate), while Europe and most of Asia are together on the Eurasian plate.