Is Australia A Continent Or Not?

[ToraToraTora]

OK I'm confused, if I ask Googtle:
1) what are the continents? I get - Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America.
2) What continent is New Zealand in? I get - Oceania
3) What is Australasia? I get - Australasia comprises Australia, New Zealand, and some neighbouring islands

Australasia is was a contenent when I was at school. Anyway how can Australia be a continent when it is part of two supersets? Surely the outer of those should be the continent, ie Australasia, as we were taught at school in the 70s? So if I can ask the question in 2 above and get an answer that is not even a "continent" as defined in 1 above how can Australia possibly be a continent? When did someone somewhere decree it was? Confused!

[tomus42]

https://countrydigest.org/is-australia-a-country-or-a-continent/

[douglas9401]

Things change, try not to get too upset or you'll have nothing left when it matters.

[Mozz71]

I think it's still technically Australasia, but it's just morphed into Australia through generational laziness.

[tomus42]

There you go. It depends which Australia you're talking about; the country or the continent.

[douglas9401]

I suppose it does help to know, especially when travelling, whether you're in-country or incontinent.

[Mozz71]

Well, I don't know s*** it seems. Australasia is only part of the continent according to wikipedia. It doesn't include the Polynesian islands or Micronesia.

I think think have just changed since school.

[Buenchico]

I'd say that Australia is a continental land mass, in the same way that mainland Europe is. However, in just the same way that the UK, Ireland, Malta, etc form part of Europe as a whole, New Zealand forms part of the continent of Australasia. Oceania is a more wide-reaching term, used to include those islands which don't really fit within Australasia.

However defining continents is never going to be easy. For example, strictly speaking, Europe isn't a continent in its own right. It's part of the 'true' continent of Eurasia.

[ToraToraTora]

logically Australia is part of a larger named area and thus cannot be a continent. It was known as Australasia when I was a kid. That included NZ + NG etc. If Australia is a continent, What continent is NZ in? Everywhere is in a continent right? except NZ it would seem thus Aus cannot be a continent.

[jno]

Oceania isn't geologically a continent and neither is Australasia. Some islands don't belong to continents, however hard you try.

Greenland is nearest to North America but historically/politically it's attached to Europe; however, it's not big enough to be called a continent itself (though Mercator's projection makes it look as if it is).

New Zealand isn't a continent though from the point of view of the British Empire it was once a colony like New South Wales and Victoria.

Australia's a continent.

[tomus42]

I'm thinking that this can only be resolved with an email to the Australian government. Answerbank is not up to the job.

[ToraToraTora]

yes chris, Australia is a continental sized area but not and actual continent. Those sources that say Australia should say/mean to say Australasia.

[Mozz71]

It seems "Australia" can refer to either the country or the wider continent, depending on the context of it's use.

i personally think Chris has the best idea and it should be called Oceania to avoid confusion.

[tomus42]

// Australia's a continent. //

Yes it is, but it appears there's another different thing also called Australia that is a country, so we need to know which one the question was referring to. Once we know that the question sort of answers itself.

[1ozzy]

We're content whatever you call the place

[ToraToraTora]

Australasia used to mean the continent that included Australia. What changed?

[Mamyalynne]

The term Oceania, originally a "great division" of the world, was replaced by the concept of Australia as a continent in the 1950s.

//Lewis & Wigen, The Myth of Continents (1997), p. 32: "...the 1950s... was also the period when... Oceania as a "great division" was replaced by Australia as a continent along with a series of isolated and continentally attached islands. [Footnote 78: When Southeast Asia was conceptualized as a world region during World War II..., Indonesia and the Philippines were perforce added to Asia, which reduced the extent of Oceania, leading to a reconceptualization of Australia as a continent in its own right. This maneuver is apparent in postwar atlases]"//

[Mozz71]

Jesus, a little research complicates things even further.

The continent of Australia contains Austrlia, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia's Western Guinea.

However, wiki says: "New Zealand is not part of the continent of Australia, but of the separate, submerged continent of Zealandia."

Zealandia??

[jno]

Australasia isn't even in my old Oxford dictionary. It only lists "Australasian" as an adjective from an 18th-century French word meaning Australia and undefined nearby islands.

Different definitions here
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46925/46925-h/46925-h.htm

The word just means what people want it to mean. I think Australia's the continent.

[jim360]

A helpful video that clarifies everything (possibly).

[tomus42]

Nothing is clarified. As I said, this question needs answering by Australia itself. Answerbank can't do it.