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The article states that Greenland is the largest island. This may conflict with a common belief that Australia is an island; as an Australian, allow me to expla
by fwlr 4y ago
The article states that Greenland is the largest island. This may conflict with a common belief that Australia is an island; as an Australian, allow me to explain (it’s actually quite interesting!)
Australia is a continent, so it cannot be an island by definition, as islands are defined as 1. completely surrounded by water, and 2. smaller than continents. It may seem like a silly technical objection at first, but it’s actually necessary to stipulate that continents cannot be islands, as otherwise the largest island would be the Americas, or perhaps mainland Asia + Africa + Europe.
Perhaps the other reason Australia seems like an island (while eg the Americas does not) is that it looks mostly convex on a global map. Unfortunately, we can’t make use of this intuition in a formal way because of the coastline paradox.
- chii 4y ago> Australia is a continent, so it cannot be an island by definition So the reason greenland being an island is due to definition then? Which makes the concept of an island moot, as it's driven via definition, rather than criteria.
- hutzlibu 4y ago"So the reason greenland being an island is due to definition then?" Isn't everything, including criteria?
- iso1631 4y agoThe unambigious definition would be a contiguous landmass surrounded by water at sealevel, which would be in descending order of area Afro-Eurasia * Americas * Antarctica Australia landmass Greenland * This of course depending on how rivers and man-made canals of Suez, Panama, and other canals like Kiel, or ones linking rivers, are treated, there could be arguments that Suez should be included (no locks), but Panama shouldn't be, or all should be, or none should be, or Suez and Panama should be, etc
- layer8 4y agoCountries are defined by convention as well; that doesn’t make them a moot concept. That aside, there is actually a rather good criteria-based definition for continents vs. islands: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35568455 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35568455
- pc86 4y agoWhat the difference between definition and criteria?
- chii 4y agoa criteria can be applied to something to find out if it fits - a definition is by fiat (without the use of any criteria).
- CRConrad 4y ago> Which makes the concept of an island moot, as it's driven via definition, rather than criteria. So all concepts that are "driven via definition, rather than criteria" are moot? Isn't that... All of them?
- nuclearcookie 4y agoIn school in Belgium, we learned that Oceania is the continent and not Australia. So for us, would Australia then be the largest island after all? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania
- juliangamble 4y agoQuoting from that page: In her 1961 book The United States and the Southwest Pacific, American author Clinton Hartley Grattan commented that, "the use of the word Oceania to cover Australia, New Zealand, and the [Pacific] islands now has a slightly old-fashioned flavor."
- mfer 4y ago> has a slightly old-fashioned flavor When people use things like this I try to catch it. This isn't a reasoned argument. It's meant to have the reader or hearer feel a certain way to change minds.
- bryanrasmussen 4y agoI mean there are expressions that seem archaic and she remarked on it.
- atonse 4y agoAgreed, anyway what is old-fashioned about it? And is that even a valid argument to not use it anymore?
- DiggyJohnson 4y agoWhy do you interpret her reporting that the term is "old-fashioned" as an argument that it shouldn't be used? She's not making an argument, just remarking on the term.
- pmarreck 4y agoYou’re right. But it may still have that flavor.
- pasc1878 4y agoIf Australia is a continent then what continent are New Zealand and New Guinea in?
- ezzaf 4y agoThey are not part of a continent, but simply islands (well, groups of islands). Some definitions would include them as part of Oceania.
- CRConrad 4y ago> Some definitions would include them as part of Oceania. Some? All, AFAICS. (Or at the very least, most.)
- Marqin 4y agoNew Zealand is part of Zealandia continent (which nowadays is mostly submerged)
- xg15 4y ago> Unfortunately, we can’t make use of this intuition in a formal way because of the coastline paradox. I wonder if you could create some "relaxed" definitions of "convex" that would be able to capture shape properties only at certain scales. Something like "every polygon from points which are between x and y meters from the coastline and at least z meters from each other is convex".
- fwlr 4y agoDraw a convex polygon which satisfies the conditions 1. Every point on the edge of the polygon is in water 2. Every point on the land in question is inside the polygon And then sample some very large n points uniformly/randomly from inside the polygon, reporting whether you hit land or water. The closer to 100% land your sampling gets, the more “convex-like” the land in question is. Basically, draw a convex bounding polygon around the land and ask how much of that bounding polygon does the land fill up.
- iso1631 4y agoThe term "continent" is illdefined, but English wikipedia defines the Continet of Australia to comprise the country of Australia and the country of Papua New Guinea, as well as part of the country of Indonesia (Western New Guinea) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_(continent) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_(continent) This is a separate Australia to Australia the Mainland (which doesn't New Guinea), and separate from Australia the country (which includes Tasmania) Therefore I'm not convinced that "Australia is a continent, so it cannot be an island by definition" rules out the Australia Mainland. If we look at the wikipedia definition of Island "subcontinental land completely surrounded by water" And accept that "Australia the continent" comprises "Australia Mainland", New Guinea (both PNG and part of Indonesia), and nearby islands like Tasmania and Lord Howe (but not New Zealand), then Australia Mainland is surely subcontinental and completely surrounded by water. Once you leave the English speaking world though, Oceania as a continent comes into play, which goes back to that "definition of continent"
- ezzaf 4y agoWouldn't this apply to other continents too? Given for example Vancouver Island is part of North America, then North America (the island, not the continent) would qualify as it too is sub-continental. Europe and Asia would be the only continents excluded by virtue of being connected by land.
- layer8 4y agoPlease see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island#Differentiation_from_continents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island#Differentiation_from_co...: There is a widely accepted difference between islands and continents in terms of geology. Continents are often considered to be the largest landmass of a particular continental plate; this holds true for Australia, which sits on its own continental lithosphere and tectonic plate (the Australian Plate). By contrast, islands are usually seen as being extensions of the oceanic crust (e.g. volcanic islands), or as belonging to a continental plate containing a larger landmass (continental islands); the latter is the case of Greenland, which sits on the North American Plate.
- bee_rider 4y ago
- CorrectHorseBat 4y ago>otherwise the largest island would be the Americas, or perhaps mainland Asia + Africa + Europe. Just curious, why perhaps? the second is much bigger
- globular-toast 4y agoMaybe Afroeurasia is just "land" and everything else is ocean, with islands. I find it funny that humans love facts like "the skin is the largest organ" but hate facts like "Afroeurasia is the largest island". I wonder why that is.
- jonwinstanley 4y agoAfrica, Europe and Asia are continents, so can’t be Islands
- globular-toast 4y agoThe definition of continent is very fuzzy and mostly man-made. So all you're really saying is Afroeurasia isn't an island because we decided it isn't.
- CRConrad 4y agoYup. That's how language works: Words mean what they mean because we've decided that they do.
- yamtaddle 4y agoI don't think people hate either, we just don't treat them as actually-true when using language. Nobody ordinarily means to include "skin" when they say "organ" (possibly doctors or academics in certain contexts, but it's not normal usage), and nobody means "Afroeurasia" when they say "island". It's a kind of reductio based on what people will tell you when you ask them to define "island", to show that definitions they come up with tend to have outcomes they don't like—happily, we may just ignore all that and keep using the words in a useful and mutually-intelligible way, so that language remains tenable. In fact, the reductio isn't proving people wrong when they say "afroeurasia isn't an island". Nobody treats it that way, so it's not. If they did, we'd need a different word for "island".
- bee_rider 4y agoI’ve never heard of the idea that Australia might be an island instead of a continent. Grew up in the 90’s in the US, FWIW. I wonder if “Australia as a continent” is an older idea? Of course people will argue endlessly about what exactly a continent is (can’t just use geology because then Europeans don’t get to be special), but the truth of the matter is, capturing Australia gets you +2 troops in Risk so it must be a continent.
- duxup 4y agoMake sense to me. > It may seem like a silly technical objection at first And of course, just gotta draw the line somewhere.
- rags2riches 4y agoI used to think continents and seabed were the same. If you were to add more sea there would be more seabed, less continents. Remove the water and all that's left is a single continent. But that's not even close. For starters, the continents are ancient. The seabed, the crust between the continents, is in a constant process of renewal. The age of the seabed is measured in millions of years, not billions.
- schwartzworld 4y ago> it’s actually necessary to stipulate that continents cannot be islands, as otherwise the largest island would be the Americas, or perhaps mainland Asia + Africa + Europe. I don't understand. Why does considering a single continent to be an island also mean that you need to include groupings of multiple continents in that definition? Europe + Asia + Africa is 3 continents, not one.
- axus 4y agoIs it transitive? Does "continent cannot be island" imply "island cannot be continent"? I don't even know the other word to describe "island cannot be a single continent, but it CAN be multiple continents". I guess that gets into the question: "Can a river count as the border of an island?". What happens if the river dries up sometimes? It seems people have already decided there are 7 continents, and will adjust the definition until it gives the result.
- manojlds 4y ago> as otherwise the largest island would be the Americas, or perhaps mainland Asia + Africa + Europe. Isn't that the point though? North America is not an island. Asia is not an island. If NA and SA were one, they would be an island, but they are not. If the point is Australia is a continent and hence not an island fine. But it's not because Americas will then become island because Americas is not a continent.
- anamexis 4y agoThere is no singular definition of continent. In some uses, the Americas are a singular continent. (One odd example is the five Olympic rings, which represent the "five inhabited continents": Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia, and the Americas.)
- manojlds 4y agoPrecisely the point that these are arbitrary definitions. Making a point that making Australia a island would make Americas also island is silly. And the ring represents Oceania and not Australia, and this makes Australia an island in Oceania.
- CRConrad 4y agoContrary to the point made somewhere here about how "Oceania is an outmoded espression", it is actually the newer concept: The word "Australia" has meant something about that part of the world for longer than has "Oceania". (At a guess, the Olympic rings symbol was designed and acquired the description of what it stands for before "Oceania" came into widespread use.) The whole probelm here is that the English word "continent" actually means two different but closely related things, namely the older cultural-geographical concept "part of the world" (cf Ger. "Erdteil", lit. "part of the Earth") on the one hand, and the more narrowly geological idea of continental shelves &c. "Hello, so which part of the world are you from?" is a much older question than the idea of tectonic plates, so Europe and Asia being different things has been thoroughly cemented into the public conciousness although geologically, they're one and the same. Contrariwise, the Americas both got the same name even though they're (apparently, AFAIK) actually two different things. So, it would help immensely to keep these two different categorisations separate. "Erdteil" is often called "region" in English, but that word is also already overloaded with quite enough meanings, so this usage probably doesn't exactly bring any increased clarity on the whole. Unfortunately, contemporary colloquial English uses the word "continent" for both concepts, so confusion like yours is only all too common. To come back to your specific points: * The ring represents Oceania and not Australia In modern politically correct parlance it represents a part of the world ("Erdteil"), not a single geological entity. Saying it represents only the actual continent of Australia would leave New Zealanders and Micronesians without any representation at all, so that would be rather un-PC. My guess is that back when the rings symbol was adopted, PC details like this just weren't on the agenda, so they simply said "Australia". * and this makes Australia an island in Oceania. No it doesn't. It makes Australia a geological-continent in the region-of-the-world Oceania; or, if you will: It makes Australia a continent-1 in continent-2 Oceania. (See how using the same word for different things kinda sucks?)
- math_dandy 4y agoAvoid these irritating semantics by insisting that "in a lake" be the final prepositional clause in any of these examples. We can all agree that a landmass surrounded by fresh water is an island, right? (And that lakes are uncontroversially fresh water by definition?)
- yowzadave 4y ago> And that lakes are uncontroversially fresh water by definition? As someone who grew up next to the Great Salt Lake, this is not uncontroversial!
- math_dandy 4y agoPoint.
- grogenaut 4y agoWhy is the gsl a lake and the Salton sea a sea
- Dylan16807 4y agoSalton Sea is a lake.
- grogenaut 4y agoSo it's the Salton Sea Lake?
- Dylan16807 4y agoPlenty of lakes don't have "Lake" in the name.
- lhorie 4y agoIn many parts of the world, it is taught that Oceania is the continent. IMHO, saying that Australia is a continent comes with the problematic notion that its close-by neighbour New Zealand is not part of any continent, which would be weird given that even Bouvet island is assigned to a continent.
- usrusr 4y agoSo we're safe from continents in lakes on islands? Phew.
- belter 4y agoIt would be great if it existed at all: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2018/apr/15/australia-doesnt-exist-and-other-bizarre-geographic-conspiracies-that-wont-go-away https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2018/apr/15...
- stickfigure 4y ago> Australia is a continent Or is it King of the Islands? CGP Grey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34
- Laaas 4y agoContinents are a flawed and made-up concept. They make no sense. They add absolutely no value to any discourse. I simply refrain from using the concept.
- fsckboy 4y agosounds like the best way to describe you and your feelings about this subject is: incontinent!
- rendaw 4y agoI agree, in fact islands are a made up concept too. All landmasses on earth are surrounding water, although not simultaneously. There are only lakes.
- ByThyGrace 4y agoThe whole conversation will get awkward once the polar ice caps fully melt.
- CRConrad 4y agoTrue that. In fact, all concepts are made-up concepts, so we should all refrain from using any concepts at all.
- munk-a 4y agoMight I supply an alternative island definition that would help clear things up? Any landmass surrounded by water where you can acquire a Mai tai is an island - while any landmass surrounded by water where you are unable to acquire a Mai tai is an islet. More seriously - this is like the pluto debate all over again and it seems mostly fueled by negative perceptions of being and not being a thing. Can't we just settle on all distinct land-masses being islands and some islands just being stupidly large? I don't get what we stand to gain by excluding either three or four land masses from the island definition. So long as we're excluding man made canals from the definition we only have Afro-eurasia, the Americas, Antartica and possibly Australia as non-island landmasses - making an exception in a group of thousands? millions? of water surrounded land-masses to not be islands feels exceptionally useless. I humbly propose we open the consumption of Mai tais to everyone on earth without discrimination. If you object I welcome you to come to a conference I'm arranging on the island of Jylland.
- CRConrad 4y ago> I welcome you to come to a conference I'm arranging on the island of Jylland. So there will be Mai tais? OK, sign me up. (Phew, good to know Jutland isn't a mere islet. And thank you, diggers of the Kiel canal!)
- AmVess 4y agoWe can fuse ideas and call it a Continental Island.
- krzyk 4y agoWell, Antarctica is bigger than Australia.
- amelius 4y agoIf Australia is an island, then the moment someone spills a drop of water on Mars they are standing on an island.