I grew up in Soviet Union and we learned that there are 6 continents but also 6 parts of the world. If we put the Americas together, we separated Europe and Asia. When we put Europe and Asia together as in Eurasia, we separated the Americas into north and south. Either way, the number 6 remained constant.
@Erik Seville Australia/Oceania is a continent consisting of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and many many islands such as Solomon Islands and Tonga
As an Asian, I always thought that Asia is too large to meaningfully describe someone from the continent, so I am fine with breaking it down further through cultural lines or whatever.
You could take this even further. You could walk from the bottom of Africa to Asia which is Eurasia, (now Eurafrusia?) then walk to the very end of Russia. You could wait until it’s winter for the icebridge to appear and walk into Alaska, walk through Canada over to the end of Chile and now nearly every single continent is connected. 3 continents.
1:05 It's not the Brazilian rainforests that stop you walking the length of the Americas. It's something much closer to the Panama Canal: the Darién Gap, a dense swampy forest in the southern part of Panama and northern Colombia which is the only gap in the Pan-American Highway. You don't even need to enter Brazil to traverse the Americas.
Grey has definitely evolved as a video maker and narrator though, I think his newer stuff manages to sound more natural while also more authoritative and dramatic.
In skandinavia we have “world parts” which is Europe, Oceania, South America, Northern America, Africa and Antarctica whilst continents are Eurasia, Oceania, America (some use both north and south while some don’t), Africa and Antarctica
In my opinion, you have to disregard the little gaps because most people consider close islands to be part of continents. Therefore, through a chain of islands, Afro-Eurasia (the actual term for those three) also contains Australia. Also, you disregard the gap between Russia and North America, meaning you have 2 continents: Antarctica and Amerieurasiacastralia.
In France, we say: -Europe -Asia -Africa -America (that you can cut in North and South btw, both versions are ok) -Oceania (we don't say Australia because Australia is the country, while Oceania contains Australia + all the other landmasses spreaded through the pacific, like New Zealand and Papua-New Guinea) -Antartica
Excellent video, thank you! . Was going over schoolwork with the kids about continents and we ran into a lot of these same issues/questions you brought up.
I was just directed to this video from a Duolingo discussion for the sentence "Ĉu Aŭstralio estas kontinento?" Mi ne konas sufiĉe por skrbi tio komento.
I love this channel, it truly does a great job at informing in a funny, easy to understand and useful way, side note on the Teddy Roosevelt joke it’s Colombia, not Columbia
In Austria I got taught that there were 5 continents: Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and America - we don't give shit about Antarctica 😂 no claims, no gains
Here in the Arab world, we say there are 6 continents -Africa -Asia -Europe -Australia/Oceania (I was taught geography by 2 different teachers, who had different opinions about the existence of Oceania) -America -Antarctica
There was a geography pub test i attended a few years back in Cambodia with other travellers and one of the people were deadset on 6 continents while the answer was 7 by the testmakers. He was out of line but he was right.
The reason that I heard that Europe and Asia are different continents is they are separated by a mountain range. This is also unhelpful, if that were true you could make boundaries on the Rocky Mountains, Himalayas, Andes, and many more.
The Urals are more of a practical boundary as they do effectively split Russia into an Asian and European half. I'm not sure if there really is that much difference between Perm and Yekaterinburg, but the Eastern half is mostly part of Russia because of the Empire's conquests and from my understanding is historically and culturally fairly split up from the West, if only because it's fairly inhospitable to major settlements. The Western part is where most of what we consider to be Russia... happened. It's certainly not the worst line I could think of
Confused with this thing for 5 years and decided to look for an answer with this video, turns out I realise that the answer is inside me all the time, thanks CGP...
In Norway we have 2 different terms for continents, one called “verdensdel” or world part in english, where Europe, Asia, north- and South-America, Australia and Antarctica are included . We also just have “kontinenter” aka continents where we include Eurasia, America, Africa, Australia and Antarctica
@@adne4336 Well, it would make a lot more sense to treat America as a single _verdensdel_ ... ...And given that you guys include Eurasia in the _"kontinenter"_ category and not Eurafrasia (despite the fact that Africa is connected to Eurasia as much as the Americas are binded together), I assume that you're basing yourselves on physical geography, so it would be a little bit more logical if you followed the model that Grey showed at the last second, i.e. Africa N. America S. America Antarctica Australia Eurasia And in regards to the _"verdensdel"_ category, change "Australia" for "Oceania". That's pretty much how we do it in France except they don't tell you in class, I had to find out about that on my own whilst checking a dictionary.
We have the same system in Belgium in Dutch, the only difference being that Australia is called Oceania. Although almost everybody calls the world parts continents
The same in Russia, except that the category of continents separates North and South America, while the category of world parts does not. Also, parts of the world is a literal translation of “части света” which is quite interesting in my opinion.
William Malone yes, Pangea was actually the last supercontinent. And in millions of years there will be another supercontinent with the boring name Pangea Ultima.
YES I knew it wasn't consistent. Had an argument with my brother and dad about this. Told them how is Madagascar counted as an African country if they aren't connected. And my brother answered "they don't have to be connected directly , they belong to the same tectonic plate" and I said surely there must be more than 7 plates that have countries that belong to them but aren't defined as part of other continents " Thanks Grey
Ahh, my first CGP Grey video. My seventh grade history teacher had good taste, showing us this in class. Still here & enjoying the channel as a college student seven years later ^_^
My elementary school life was kinda crazy, and I studied in a russian school, a US school, and an argentinian school. And a couple of educational videos too. I've got 3 different answers: 5, 6, 7. There are arguments about distinguishing between North and South Americas, Europe and Asia, and I've even met some people who don't consider Antartica a country. So anyway, this is nuts
It's not the Brazilian rain forest what stops you from walking from Alaska to Cape Horn. It's the mountainous rain forest in the Darién Gap, in Panama.
As an Aussie we were always taught in school that Australia is a country, an island and a continent all in one because I guess we just wanna pat ourselves on the back and give the kiwis the finger.
Eurasia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica, North America, South America. All large land masses, not connected by large pieces of land (Panama and Sinai desert are very small connections), roughly represented by tectonic plates and roughly representive of the 7 big realms of biogeography (ignoring indomalaya) . The best way to do it
I love how seven years later the comments are still FULL of people going "Uhh, it's obviously [arbitrary number they learned at school]" without explaining why Like did they even watch the damn video.
You could extend this problem to oceans. 4: The standard answer. Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, and Arctic. 5: The water around Antarctica is sometimes regarded as a separate Southern Ocean. 3: Some people ignore the Arctic as its own ocean, as it's so small, and instead consider it part of the Atlantic. 1: Since all of the oceans interact and mix with each other anyway, why think of them as separate entities? All the world's oceanic waters together are collectively called the World Ocean--I know, real clever.
I personally would go with either one or three. The reality is that there is only one ocean. The so called World Ocean. But, I can agree on pointing out the various parts of it as the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. Really those three are just the _"we have to navigate around some big-ass island to keep going"_ parts.
It's 6 1- Europe 2- Asia 3- África 4- Oceania 5- Atarctica 6- América The europeans cartographed the world, so we are to say who and who's not a continent.
1:38 indonisea claims half of new guniea and the other papua new guinea while they're diffrent contients. so then there will be 3 continets. could be called afro-ausurasia or afro-oceiurasia
Here in Brazil is teached that are 8 continents: 1. North America 2. Central America 3. South America 4. Africa 5. Europe 6. Asia 7. Antarctica 8. Oceania (not just Australia) Edit: Some teachers confound Regions with Continents. Other teachers may say that America is a single continent and it's OK.
8 continents? I'm from Brazil too, but I learned there are 6 continents Europe Asia Africa Oceania Antarctica America (subdivide in three regions: North America, Central America and South America, but the continent is America).
these should be the continents. -north america -central america -south america -antartica -africa -europe -Arabia(Its cuturly different. -persia -India (its Super big) -asia -Indochina(siam) -Oceania
About the Australia or Oceania being the continent, the definiton of continent doesnt apply to Oceania since its just little scattered islands that if Australia didnt exist there wouldnt even be a thought of Oceanian continent, becuase Australia makes almost all of that region of Earth, and the definiton of a continent applies to Australia without Oceania, but the most geographical way to call that region of Earth is "Australia & Oceania"
Here in Argentina it is teached that there are six continents. 1. Africa 2. Oceania (Australia and New Zeland) 3. Europe 4. Asia 5. America (it divides in North-America, South-America and Central-America. But we don't see them as continents but as regions) 6.Antartica
In Slovakia we differentiate between continents and world-parts (as it is literally translated) Continents (basically tectonic plates): Eurasia, Africa, Oceania, North America, South America, Antarctica World-parts (based on culture): Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, America, Antarctica So 6 continents/world-parts
