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!

[jno]

Mozz, Zealandia's an underwater continent, insofar as that means anything. it broke away fom Gondwanaland but then mostly sank. New Caledonia and New Zealand are bits that remained above water.

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

[ToraToraTora]

no one is saying AB can do it, we are having a discussion tomus.

[tomus42]

That's fine ttt, and it's enjoyable to take part. I just thought at some point you might actually want a definitive answer.

[Mozz71]

I know jno, however I lifted the quote from the Australia (continent) wiki page. It seems New Zealand is homeless.

[jno]

tomus, Australia could be downgraded, like Pluto, especially if they try cheating at cricket again. The next smallest landmass is Greenland, but that's only a third the size of Australia; so that's probably a convenient place to draw the line between continents and other earthly bodies.

[tomus42]

There's obviously a political Australia and also a geographical one, and people are talking about the different ones in the same discussion, which doesn't help in finding the answer.

[jno]

New Zealand's a long way from anywhere - much more than Malta or Sri Lanka, say - so that's probably a realistic conclusion, Mozz. (Even mainland Russia and Alaska are only 55 miles apart.) There's a reason it was the last country in the world to be settled, a couple of centuries after Iceland.

[ToraToraTora]

tomus 23:23, I was hoping for some information that would logically define Australia as a continent but it seems that the whole world of geologists, geographers and assorted planetary scientists can't decide either so I'm sticking to my school boy definition of Australasia being the "continent" that contains, among others, Australia. That makes the most logical sense to me. I think it's plainly a nonsense to define the country alone as a continent.

[tomus42]

The thing I've learnt from this discussion though ttt is that there's a country called Australia and a continent called Australia and they're two different things. So, it's wrong to say Australia is one thing or the other - it depends which Australia you're talking about.

[pixie374]

We were taught Australasia at school in the 90s. Not sure what has changed, but there also seems to be a debate about whether there are 5 or 7 continents. They are supposed to be a self-contained "land mass"? So it should be easy enough to work out.

[lankeela]

douglas at 22.41 - superb!

[jno]

it's not nonsense to call Australia a continent: it's about three quarters the size of Europe. But it depends how you want to define "continent": geologically, historically, culturally? Only Australia and Antarctica don't have arbitrary borders with other continents. But there's no world government to decree what's a continent and what isn't.

There are arguments for dividing the world into four, five, six or seven continents; you take your pick (but note that all of them include Australia, defined to include Tasmania and New Guinea island, but not "Australasia")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Number

[sanmac]

It's an interesting question and discussion, and there probably isn't really a definitive answer. The question could be asked as to why South America and North America are named as separate continents when they are part of the same land-mass? (Forget the Panama Canal)

[Mozz71]

//There's a reason it was the last country in the world to be settled, a couple of centuries after Iceland.//

The indigenous Maori people probably wished the settlers had stayed away.

[ToraToraTora]

I think what this discussion has shown is that there is no defining criteria that works in all cases.

[tomus42]

If you follow the undersea land mass far enough you arrive at Africa. Just saying.

[Mozz71]

//We were taught Australasia at school in the 90s.//

Pixie, I didnt realise you were so youthful. Barely out of nappies!

[pixie374]

One "fact" we were always told, was that all the continents begin and end with the same letter... which would rule out North or South America for a start.
I think we had Europe, Africa, Asia, Australasia and America.
Might ask my son for an update:-)

[pixie374]

Lol, mozz... probably back into nappies soon enough :-)

[albaqwerty]

I like this, especially as it's colour-coded :-D

https://www.countries-ofthe-world.com/continents-of-the-world.html