According to the United States Central Intelligence Agency, there are 7 continents globally. Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. Continents are large landmasses on the earth inhabited by humans and other animals.

There are several ways to determine which large landmass is considered a continent. One way is through size; another, through location; and also by population or even culture.

The traditional way of determining continents has been based on size, location, and population. Geologists or scientists who study the Earth divide the planet into tectonic plates. Tectonic plates are massive chunks of earth that move around above the earth’s surface. They’re about 80 km thick and can be thousands of kilometers long. The pieces of earth that break off to form landmasses or continents are called landmasses or continental crust.

The best example of this is the North American and South American tectonic plates, which we know as the continents of North America and South America. The largest continental crust that forms Asia and Europe together, Eurasia, is considered a supercontinent because it’s the largest.

The continents are separated by either water or large bodies of land that humans can’t easily cross for an extended period. For example, Asia is considered separate from Europe because there are the Ural Mountains (which are part of Russia). The Ural Mountains make it difficult to travel between Asia and Europe. These bodies of water are called oceans.

The largest landmass on the planet is Asia, which makes up approximately 30% of the world’s land area. This is larger than all other continents combined. The smallest continent in size is Australia, which only takes up about 3 percent of the earth’s surface.

Another way to determine continents is by population or culture. This way has been criticized for several reasons. It’s argued that the culture of humans living in any given region doesn’t always stay constant. For example, if Australia were to have a massive influx of immigrants from Asia who were not originally from Australia, some people would argue they would no longer be considered part of the continent of Australia.

When it comes to culture, when Europeans were colonizing places such as North America and South America, they often named the landmasses after the regions in Europe that they were from. For example, North America would be named after a region called Northern Europe, or South America would be named after Southern Europe.