this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Our accepted definition of what a continent is sucks. Why is Europe considered a continent but India is not? Every argument for Europe being a separate continent applies even better to India.

Europe just wanted to be special and controlled science at the time, change my mind.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I propose we reclassify india as a dwarf continent

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

the pluto of continents

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

india has HALF the landmass...seriously...thats not a continent

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

If we're going based on landmass, shouldn't Russia be its own continent? Russia is almost twice as big as Europe, and it's culturally unique compared to its neighbors.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

well it spans two continents...and also it is russia, so.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Yup, but which two depends on how you define "continent." It either spans Europe and Asia if you go by common definitions of continents, or it spans Eurasia and North America if you look at tectonic continental plates.

[–] Lumisal 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It has to do with geology. Europe basically swallowed up and mixed in with another continent a long time ago after Pangea broke up

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

it really doesn't:

In contrast, the present eastern boundary of Europe partially adheres to the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, which is somewhat arbitrary and inconsistent compared to any clear-cut definition of the term "continent".

The current division of Eurasia into two continents now reflects East-West cultural, linguistic and ethnic differences which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line.

There's really no physical reasoning for it. You can read on in that article for the historical basis if you want (basically, Homer and other Greeks coined it, and it just kind of stuck), but it's really quite arbitrary where scientists actually draw the line.

[–] Lumisal 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My bad, should clarify I was referring to this specifically:

In geology, a continent is defined as "one of Earth's major landmasses, including both dry land and continental shelves". The geological continents correspond to seven large areas of continental crust that are found on the tectonic plates, but exclude small continental fragments such as Madagascar that are generally referred to as microcontinents. Continental crust is only known to exist on Earth.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

If we're talking about tectonic plates, then:

  • Europe is part of Eurasia
  • Arabian peninsula, India, and far east Russia aren't part of it, but we'd probably include them as subcontintents

We'd end up with the following continents:

  • N. America (technically includes far east Russia) w/ Caribbean subcontinent
  • S. America
  • Eurasia w/ Indian and Arabian subcontintents
  • Africa w/ Somali subcontinent
  • Australia
  • Antarctica

Image.

Honestly, that would be a much more satisfactory definition than the current one, which seems to be "large landmass bigger than Greenland with logical separations when they're too big." What I really don't understand is when people say Europe and Asia are separate, but N. America and S. America are combined, that's logically inconsistent.