There are seven continents and five oceans on our planet. The continents are the huge landmasses that separated by the waters of the oceans. On this page we will tell you more about the continents, about their sizes and special features.
The seven continents on our planet are: Africa, Asia, Antarctica, Europa, North America and South America and Oceania/Australia. These 7 continents vary in size and population numbers.
- Earth's Land & Continents
- Pangaea
- Pangaea Drift
- Seven Continents
- The Largest Continent
- The Smallest Continent
- Continent With Highest Number Of Countries
- Continents Includes Islands
- Continent Drift
- Continents Land Add Up
Earth's Land & Continents
The Earth’s biggest landmasses, including both dry land and continental mainland racks." Other characteristics of a continent include:
- Areas of land that are raised in relation to the encompassing ocean floor
- An assortment of rock formations, including igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary
- A crust that is thicker than those of the encompassing oceanic crusts. For instance, the continental crust might change in thickness from about eighteen to twenty eight miles in depth, whereas oceanic crust is usually about four miles thick
- Clearly-defined boundaries
We have been taught that there are seven continents: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.
But few geologists consider six continents based on above criteria including Africa, Antarctica, Australia, North and South America, and Eurasia. According to them Europe and Asia are one large landmass. Dividing them into two separate continents is more of a geopolitical consideration because Russia occupies so much of the Asian continent.
Recently, some geologists have started arguing that a "new" continent called Zealandia can be created. This landmass is visible off the eastern coast of Australia. New Zealand and a number of small islands are surfaced above water; the remaining 94 percent is submerged beneath the Pacific Ocean.
Pangaea
According to geologists, around 300 million years ago, Earth has only one massive supercontinent which was surrounded by a single ocean called Panthalassa.
The clarification for Pangaea's formation introduced the modern theory of plate tectonics, which places that the Earth's external shell is converted into several plates that slides with the passage of time over Earth's rocky shell, the mantle.
Over the course of the time around 4.5 billion-years the Earth's supercontinent drastically altered due to continues breakup and formation of landmasses.
According to Brendan Murphy who is a a geology professor at the St. Francis Xavier University, in Antigonish, Nova Scotia said, "This is what's driven the entire evolution of the planet through time. This is the major backbeat of the planet.
Pangaea Drift
Pangaea has broken up in several courses of times between 195 million and 170 million years ago in the early Jurassic period, when the Central Atlantic Ocean opened.
Around 150 million years ago, Gondwana first split from Laurasia. Gondwana was a supercontinent which includes Africa, South America, Antarctica, India and Australia and Laurasia was another where Eurasia and North America resides.
Around 60 million years ago, North America split off from Eurasia and India surfaced from Antarctica, and Africa and South America rifted.
Seven Continents
| # | Continent | Population (2020) | Area (Km²) | Density (P/Km²) | World Population Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Asia | 4,641,054,775 | 31,033,131 | 150 | 59.54% |
| 2 | Africa | 1,340,598,147 | 29,648,481 | 45 | 17.20% |
| 3 | Europe | 747,636,026 | 22,134,900 | 34 | 9.59% |
| 4 | North America | 592,072,212 | 21,330,000 | 28 | 7.60% |
| 5 | South America | 430,759,766 | 17,461,112 | 25 | 5.53% |
| 6 | Australia/Oceania | 43,111,704 | 8,486,460 | 5 | 0.55% |
| 7 | Antarctica | 0 | 13,720,000 | 0 | 0.00% |
What about Russia???
Russia is divided into two parts first European Russia and the other "Asian part" of the Russian Federation along the Ural Mountains line, from the source of the Ural River down to the Greater Caucasus from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea.
Around 75 percent of the Russian territory is situated in Asia and with same percentage population lives in the European continent.
The Largest Continent
The largest continent is Asia which stretches from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the western Pacific Ocean with more than 40 countries in it. 60% of Earth’s population lives in Asia.
Asia includes many islands even countries on it like Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, and Taiwan.
Asia holds almost a third of the world’s land. Asia has a wide range of climate regions. Asia is the most mountainous of all the continents. Over 50 highest peaks in the world are in Asia including Earth's highest point that is Mount Everest with over 8,700 meters (29,000 feet) high in the Himalaya range.
Asia also has the lowest place on land which is the shores of the Dead Sea in the countries of Israel and Jordan. The land there lies more than 390 meters (1,300 feet) below sea level.
The Smallest Continent
The largest country on Earth and the smallest continent is Australia which lies between the Pacific and Indian seas in the Southern Hemisphere.
The Australian continent stretches for over 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from west to east and nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 km) from the Cape York Peninsula in the northeast to Wilsons Promontory in the southeast. Australian jurisdiction extends north to the southern coasts of Papua New Guinea and 310 miles (500 km) to the southernmost point of the island of Tasmania.
Australia is separated from Indonesia to the northwest by the Timor and Arafura seas, from Papua New Guinea to the northeast by the Coral Sea and the Torres Strait, from the Coral Sea Islands Territory by the Great Barrier Reef, and from New Zealand to the southeast by the Tasman Sea, and from Antarctica in the far south by the Indian Ocean.
Australia is the flattest and driest continent. The western plateau and a sizable portion of the center depression are, in fact, deserts and consist of the red and black soil plains while some bleak regions hold significant mineral wealth.
Australia’s plains show distinct signs of geographical zonation in the subequatorial, tropical, and subtropical zones.
Oceania is a common term to consider the smaller landmasses on the Pacific Ocean, primarily Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea. It also includes the three island regions of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia (including the US state of Hawaii).
Oceania is home to three island groups that go by the names continental islands, high islands, and low islands.
Continent With Highest Number Of Countries
The second largest continent is Africa which covers about 1/5th of the total land surface of Earth. The continent is bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, on the north by the Mediterranean Sea, on the east by the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, and on the south by the mingling waters of the Atlantic and Indian oceans.
Africa's northern extremity is Al-Ghīrān Point, near Al-Abyaḍ Point (Cape Blanc), Tunisia; its southern extremity is Cape Agulhas, South Africa; its farthest point east is Xaafuun (Hafun) Point, near Cape Gwardafuy (Guardafui), Somalia; and its western extremity is Almadi Point (Pointe des Almadies), on Cape Verde (Cap Vert), Senegal. In the northeast, Africa was joined to Asia by the Sinai Peninsula until the construction of the Suez Canal. Paradoxically, the coastline of Africa—18,950 miles (30,500 km) in length—is shorter than that of Europe, because there are few inlets and few large bays or gulfs.
Africa's Madagascar is one of the largest islands in the world along with other islands include the Seychelles, Socotra, and other islands to the east; the Comoros, Mauritius, Réunion, and other islands to the southeast; Ascension, St. Helena, and Tristan da Cunha to the southwest; Cape Verde, the Bijagós Islands, Bioko, and São Tomé and Príncipe to the west; and the Azores and the Madeira and Canary islands to the northwest.
The continent is cut almost equally in two by the Equator, so that most of Africa lies within the tropical region, bounded on the north by the Tropic of Cancer and on the south by the Tropic of Capricorn. Because of the bulge formed by western Africa, the greater part of Africa’s territory lies north of the Equator. Africa is crossed from north to south by the prime meridian (0° longitude), which passes a short distance to the east of Accra, Ghana.
Continents Includes Islands
When geologists designate a continent, they usually include all the islands associated with that continent in its image. For instance, Japan is part of the continent of Asia. Similarly, Greenland and all the islands in the Caribbean Sea are considered part of North America. All continents border at least one ocean.
Continents Drift
The continents are lying on tectonic plates. Each tectonic plate is free-floating and can move independently. Earthquakes and volcanoes are the direct result of the movement of tectonic plates at fault lines.
Most of the earthquakes and volcanoes around the Pacific ocean basin—a pattern known as the “ring of fire”—are due to the movement of tectonic plates in this region. Other observable results of short-term plate movement include the gradual widening of the Great Rift lakes in eastern Africa and the rising of the Himalayan Mountain range.
The motion of plates can be described in four general patterns:
Collision: when two continental plates are shoved together
Subduction: when one plate plunges beneath another
Spreading: when two plates are pushed apart
Transform faulting: when two plates slide past each other
Continents Land Add Up
The continents add up to about 148 million square kilometers of land. A very small portion of the total land area is made up of islands that are not considered physical parts of continents.
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