TIL that there is no strict definition of a continent
Started an argument with my much smarter wife because she said North and South America are not two separate continents. She was right, because continents are only defined by convention.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ContinentOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
115 replies
Yeah. People in the US learn about 7 continents at school. In France, we learn about the 5 continents.
N'importe quoi, y a la chocolatine du nord et la chocolatine du sud, ça fait 6, retourne à ton école pourrave à Paimpont (j'ai rien contre Paimpont, c'est très pimpant).
I hope that’s really the gibberish my browser’s translate function tells me it is
It’s very logical.
There’s north chocolatine (basically hillbilly way to say pain au chocolat) and south chocolatine, which according to the above commenter of extremely high IQ, means there as 6 continents instead of five.
WTF did you just call me?? Imma shank you
Maybe some of it is literal word for word translation vs accounting for grammatical differences but …
Paimpont est réputée pour son école de pompiers.
What seven, America is two and Europe/Asia is counted twice also? I'm from elsewhere and also learned 5
American here.
I remember many years ago I was playing WoW and the conversation in guild chat was about continents so I said that in my country America is a single continent. That moment an American in guild flipped the fuck out and got really mad at me even suggesting that his great country could be in the same continent as mine (Brazil) going as far as saying "that's so fucking dumb, next you will say Europe and Asia are the same continent?!" which is funny cause eurasia is a thing, what a dumbass.
Mexico is in North America, but try telling that the common trump supporting gringo.
AFAIK, Cuba is on the North American tectonic plate as well...
Yes, but they technically count as "the Caribbean"
I remember when central America was a thing.
Edit: Apparently even considering the existence of Central America Mexico is still North America
North America is entirely defined by the NAFTA. Geography is mostly political.
Geology doesn't care about your feelings.
Or anything else, really.
But it does care where we draw the line!
A friend of mine went from a school in the US to a French school, and when she said there were 7 continents, everyone including the teacher made fun of her.
Dogmatism goes both ways.
The mapmen have a great video about it.
Personally a great fan of the CGP Grey videos. Continents in this case: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34
Love their videos
There is a useful way to do it: By looking at Tectonic Plates and their boundaries.
According to the image on Wikipedia depicting the plates, there would then be 17 continents, although some of those 17 would be entirely ocean, or only small islands
Half of Japan would be North American? I didn't expect that.
Lots of island chains are actually mountain chains partially hidden underwater. And mountain chains usually appear where two tectonic plates ram into one another, causing one of them to bunch up.
They do like to play baseball.
I’m really surprised this is the first time I’ve seen Africa as two continents. The Great Rift Valley is well known but I just hadn’t heard going the next logical step
The Red Sea is actually just another rift valley along the same edge of the plate. It just filled in with water first.
These are not continents. The image is more of an illustration of why tectonic plates are not a good way to redefine continents not be arbitrary.
That map is pure chaotic good vibes.
And then India is no longer in Eurasia. Or you could say that Los Angeles is not in North America.
I don't see a problem with that.
Plus, by tectonic plates, isn't it America, since N/C/S America are on the same plate, right? (I don't trust my memory of school from decades ago).
India is usually considered a subcontinent. West Coast is a geologic mess until resolved.
I mean, it useful to geologists. Not so much to economists or sociologists.
There also isn't a strict definition of when a pond becomes a lake
When your mom gets in it
Huh. In my language the difference is that a pond is artificial (generally for farming fish), but apparently that's a fishpond in English and pond can be natural. TIL.
Some states do indeed codify this in law, but the definition varies by state. Michigan and Minnesota for two if I'm remembering correctly.
If Minnesota ever went down to 9,999 lakes, they'd redefine it.
These are BODIES OF WATER, dammit!!! Not something as easily-reclassified like what qualifies as a craft brewery!
You don't need reclassification to lose a lake; you just need a drought.
Edit: I may have misunderstood you. It's pretty late, and I should be sleeping...
Or when a lake becomes a sea. The Alboran Sea is smaller than Lake Superior. The Caspian Sea is a lake. Everything is made up and nothing is real.
I try to explain this to people who don't believe south americans call themselves americans.
This becomes even more confusing with the way people commonly talk in English versus Spanish. In English, residents of the United States of America typically refer to themselves as Americans, and in English “American” typically only refers to someone from the USA. In Spanish, it seems residents of the USA are typically called the equivalent of “United Stateser” and “American” refers more generally to someone from the continent, at least in some parts of the Spanish-speaking world. I once had an apparent native Spanish-speaker online argue that was the correct form in English as well and insisted that the official name of the country is United States (Estados Unidos), not United States of America (Estados Unidos de América), and that America never refers to the country in English. They didn’t appreciate when I asked why in international sporting events the Americans’ shirts always say USA and why the supporters chant “U-S-A” all the time.
Languages are weird. If you’re learning a different language and try to insist that the new language behave the same as your native language, you’re going to have a hard time.
Mostly right but nobody in Latinamerica refers to themselves as American in any language. It would be weird.
That one's a weird one. We don't explicitly call ourselves Americans in Spanish because there's no need to but whenever this comes up in conversation it's generally agreed upon that we are technically Americans (and then people immediately take the opportunity to dunk on USians for appropriating the word 😅).
Yeah, that's my point. Being part of the continent is something that almost never comes up. We call ourselves whatever we are and it's never "Americanos".
Yep. In Spain and Latin America, there is no separation between North and South. Its just one continent: América
Most romance languages follow that. The 5 rings in the Olympics logo are meant to be continents.
Antarctica is severely underrepresented in the Olympics. Not a single medal.
Well, they're in South America
Right? Continent or not has nothing to do with it.
And yet when you tell people that you mean south americans when you say americans they always freak out.
Do those same people freak out when you refer to Mexicans or Canadians as Americans?
It might not be a North/South continent thing.
Yeah, that’s really because the USA doesn’t really have a name, just a description.
They may eventually admit they know it's technically correct, but you take your life in your hands if you try telling a Canadian that they are "American." Well, not your life, but they'll probably stop talking to you for a little while.
I think it's one of those "technically" things, that isn't useful.
Someone from The Americas is American, technically. That's how language works.
But I'd venture* that 97.3% of people mean United States when they say "Americans", or better, it's what people mean 97.3% of the time. The only time I've seen people bring it up is when they're from a South American country.
So I'd say context and scale of detail/granularity influence the meaning in the moment.
*Totally Made Up Stats
The USA isn't the only America nor the only United States. Maybe when the government collapses we can come up with a better name.
North America isn't even the first place to be called America
You mean US citizens. I've had "Americans" chime in on that as well, when I explained that for people who are not from the US, that "America" is not just the US of A but all of the Americas, and that Americans are not just people from the US either.
Well, smart Americans call themselves Americans too, and dumb Americans call themselves Americans, even Usamericans call themselves Americans ;-)
The borders between Europe and Asia are absolutely arbitrary and the border between Asia and Africa is the Suez Canal
It's not entirely arbitrary, it's just based on racism.
Iirc its actually based on some guy assuming a river was a cannal and using it as a geographical border and no one really checking until the border had stuck.
I remember always questioning that one as a kid. The answer I always got was something about mountains. For some reason, I think the true history, like a lot of arbitrary divisions is probably ✨racism✨
You were right too, because continents are only defined by convention. And by the convention I was taught, there’s 3 Americas: South, Central, and North.
In elementary school we were taught that as well, then in middle school we were taught Central America is part of South America, but in high school we were taught Central America is part of North America.
That’s not confusing at all.
I just looked up my old geography textbook from 6th grade to double check if I was remembering correctly. And it's yes and no. It was indeed North America, Central America, and South America, but they all were regions of a single continent: America.
Could be I was taught that way too. I don’t have any of my old textbooks though.
there's also like 5 definitions of "species". Sometimes what seem like simple concepts are hard to pin down
Not always, I'm simple and easy to pin down.
And New Zealand is its own continent! I like that definition
I'm not sure New Zealand is real. It's not on my maps.
Oh, it's real. I've been there. Beautiful place.
Maybe you need newer maps?
Explanatory link
Whoosh :(
https://youtu.be/_qepWb_NVj4
Oceania is the best continent
Always at war with Eastasia.
Regardless of which definition you go with, someone saying North and South America are one continent but Europe and Asia are two separate continents are at the very least being inconsistent
There isn't really a natural barrier between North and South America, though. Asia has the Urals.
North and South America have the Darién Mountains/Darién Gap
The Urals don't even stretch all the way across the continental boundary
Again: inconsistent.
Hmmm... You're right. It does feel a lot more arbitrary when you put it that way.
Shall we make California its own continent because of the Rockies?
You know what? You actually do have a point.
They'd have to post a sign at the border warning that continents and mountains may cause cancer..
Okay, that was actually pretty funny
North and South America I can see either way, but splitting Europe and Asia is insane.
There's two definitions in my language. One for land mass continent (eurasia) and the other is more of a geopolitical continent if that makes sense (europe, asia)
I think English needs the same.
Eurasia and Oceania sure, quibble all you like that makes sense to me. But combining the Americas and pushing Africa in with Asia makes no sense to me.
Same. I think having a tiny land bridge shouldn't be enough when the idea of a continent is to identify the largest masses of land separated by oceans, especially when disconnected land can still be a part of a contenent.
My list would be:
I can see the combined Americas and Africa combined with Eurasia if the idea is land masses that separate oceans, but oceans are as arbitrary as continents so I don't think that is a useful definition.
I once tried to find a definition of "subcontinent", but all I found was that its almost solely used for India and sometimes for dividing North and South America into to two American subcontinents.
Nobody tell her about trees, then.
I always use the one definition that's gonna annoy the most amount of people.
It's always Americas because no one else gives a flying fuck
Are you American, then?
Nope, I'm Africa-Eurasian
So... someone else does give a fuck...
Yes, I personally love 4 continents. Americas, Afro-Eurasia, Oceania, Antarctica
If you're gonna group them like that, there's no Americas, it's America.
I think people write Americas because when just writing America too many people assume the US.
Yeah, I'm just being pedantic.
Technically correct. Which is best kind of correct.
Make cents
I don't accept the grouping of Africa and Eurasia as one
Eh, they're all just big and bigger islands, because every land mass is surrounded by water.
I'm of the unpopular opinion that India/Pakistan should be its own continent and New Zealand should be different continent then Australia. Both because they are different techtonic plates.
It's all one connected landmass (at least, until man-made channels), so it fits
It's hard to have a strict definition when there are only 4-12 of them. We didn't have a strict definition of planets until less than 20 years ago.
Italy is a part of Africa. At least, geologically.
You're wife is right because they are the same landmass. We separate Europe and Africa from Asia due to racism.
We separate Europe, Asia, and Africa because the Ancient Greeks invented the boundaries and terms, and the Romans kept them up.
They lived in the area, so for them, these boundaries were just names given to land on either side of major bodies of water: the Nile, the Black Sea and Rioni river, and the Mediterranean.
They considered Egypt part of Asia for a while, and anything south of the Med as the landmass "Libya." The Romans kept up the same definitions as maps expanded, and just extrapolated from there.
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