so from what google is giving me, this is what i’ve gathered and some of it is contradictory hence why im posting here. i need this to be explained to me like i’m a five year old or i’ll never understand.
– oceania is a continent
– australia is a continent
– oceania is also australia
– but oceania isn’t a continent anymore it’s an area of the earth
– but just kidding australia is a continent inside of the continent known as oceania
W H A T ?
In: 11
There are a lot of definitions of continent (and country for that matter)
There is the strict geological sense – e.g. the actual tectonic plates that places sit on. In this case the country of Australia (my home) is its own continent, with New Zealand being on its own subcontinent.
There’s also the definition that’s based on geopolitics, cultural ties and just how things look on a map. Australasia is often considered to be New Zealand, Australia and Papua New Guinea. Oceania expands on that to a lot of Pacific Island nations in Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.
Humans like to fit things into neat little categories but the world doesn’t really work like that, so there are multiple definitions.
From a personal perspective, if I wanted to count all the continents I’ve visited, I like the Oceania-as-a-continent model – so if I’d been to Fiji or Australia, I’ve visited “Oceania”. I count Oceania as the 7th continent and was taught that in school.
Some places teach a 3 continent model where “AfroEurasia” is one continent because Africa, Europe and Asia are part of one contiguous land mass, even though they are culturally very different and sit on different tectonic plates. So different definitions.
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