5!, no 6, no...um 5?

I run into this problem ALL the time when me and my friends are talking about how many continents there are...

Continents are arbitrary divisions of the earth's landmass. There are as many as there are. The end.

*travel *science *nature *comedy for some humor.

Adding video to channels (Comedy, Nature, Science, Travel) - requested by ant.

This dude is awesome at explaining things.

The whole Pluto thing was not just because of its size but also because of the very excentric way Pluto travels around the sun in comparison to the other planets... but besides that: what seemed to be a clip for children turned out to be pretty informative and entertaining.

Ahaaaaa, the mud has finally cleared & we are left with........more mud

^Upvoted^ for being very entertaining.

I always understood that a continent was defined by continental plates with significant landmass. I was always under the impression that there were 6 continents despite what Europe selfishly tries to do.

Get over yourselves Europe......you aren't continental, but you are awesome.

The answer is clearly 6.>> ^Boise_Lib:

5!, no 6, no...um 5?

Although a different subject, this reminds me of How long is the coastline of Britain ?

I say arbitrarily justify it at 31.

Make it happen scientists!

That would make India a separate continent from Asia since it's still connected to a subducting oceanic plate under Asia! Hence the continuing collision and the Himalayas. Even Geologic plate boundaries gets squirrely since there are micro-plates. And also, there are no "continental plates," rather continental parts of plates. All plates are composed of oceanic and continental crust.

By the way, this guy is WAY off base in terms of geology.. Nothing in the Pacific Ocean?? There are two types of crust, defined by lithology (rock type): Oceanic crust (dense dark basalt) and continental crust (not-dense light-colored granite). The Pacific Ocean is underlain by oceanic crust, which because of it's higher density always sinks beneath continental crust when they run into each other. That's why the age of the continents is ~4.4 billion years old while the oldest oceanic crust is something like 200 million years old.

Anyways, you could definitely divide the continents based on their modern tectonic boundaries where each continent is part of a separate plate from any others. That would give you ~9 continents, but then you run into the micro-plate issue..

>> ^Hive13:

I always understood that a continent was defined by continental plates with significant landmass. I was always under the impression that there were 6 continents despite what Europe selfishly tries to do.
Get over yourselves Europe......you aren't continental, but you are awesome.

...and being incontinent is ENTIRELY different.