Continents of the World

Continents of the World

The Definition of a Continent A continent is a large body of land, above water, that has a natural geological border. How Many Continents Are There? Depending on how you count them, there are anywhere from 4 to 7 continents. The difference of opinion arises because some people consider Europe and Asia to be one continent, some people consider North and South America to be one continent, and a few people even consider Europe, Asia, and Africa to be one huge continent called Eurafrasia. What are the Names of the Continents? As mentioned above, not everyone agrees on exactly how the world is divided into continents, but these are the entities you will sometimes see referred to as continents: Africa Asia Eurasia Eurafrasia Antarctica Europe Oceania Australia America North America South America Five Ways to Count Continents #1 - Seven Continents Africa - Antarctica - Asia - Europe North America - South America - Oceania #2 - Six Continents Africa - Antarctica - Eurasia - Oceania North America - South America #3 - Six Continents Africa - America - Antarctica Asia - Europe - Oceania #4 - Five Continents Africa - America - Antarctica Eurasia - Oceania #5 - Four Continents Eurafrasia - America - Antarctica - Oceania

The roots of the continents name.

Continents
From Latin "continere" for "to hold together", terra continens, the "continuous land".

Africa
A Roman term Africa terra "African land", the land of Africus, the northern part of Africa, a part of the Roman Empire. The Roman name has possibly its roots in the Phoenician term Afryqah, meaning "colony", as translitered into Roman Latin.

America
The name America was first used in 1507 by the Cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in its treatise "Cosmographiae Introductio" to name the New World, after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian navigator who made two (or four) trips to America with Spanish and Portuguese expeditions, it was Vespucci who first recognized that America was a new continent, and not part of Asia.

Asia
Latin and Greek origin - the "Eastern Land", it is speculated to be from the word asu "to go out, to rise," in reference to the sun, thus "the land of the sunrise."

Australia
Latin - Terra Australis incognita the "Unknown Southern Land", an imaginary, hypothetical continent, a large landmass in the south of the Indian Ocean, the supposed counterpart of the Northern Hemisphere.

Europe
Latin and Greek origin. Europa, Europe, often explained as "broad face," from eurys "wide" and ops "face." Some suggests a possible semantic origin by the Sumerian term erebu with the meaning of "darkness" and "to go down, set" (in reference to the sun) which would parallel Orient.

Oceania
From the French Term Océanie, the southern Pacific Islands and Australia, conceived as a continent".

Antarctic
Old French: antartique, in Modern Latin: antarcticus, in Greek: antarktikos, from anti: "opposite" + arktikos: "of the north".