Why is Antarctica not an island, when it is not connected to any above-sea landmass and Australia is considered to be an island (continent)? Thank you
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Geography semantics. They are both island continents but Australia is historically referred to as such and Antarctica is not.
there are continental landmasses and there are islands. the definition varies depending on who you ask, but, very generally, landmasses are big, connected pieces of land surrounded by oceans, that lie on top of the same distinct piece of continental crust (think of it like the foundation of the continents). islands are smaller, and don’t lie on top of a distinct continental crust, instead, they share that piece of crust with many more islands. think of japan, with it’s many islands, they sure can be thought about distinct landmasses, but they all lie on top of the same piece of continental crust.
antarctica lies on top of it’s own piece of continental crust, and so does australia, so it’s generally not considered to be an island. except that sometimes it is, because the definitions are fuzzy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_islands_by_area
Because the definition of what a continent is is dumb and not uniform across the world. There is a lot of argument about it. Not everyone agrees.
For example, I have a friend from Peru who was taught that north america and south america are the same continent, because they are connected, meaning he was taught there are only 6 continents in the world.
But by that logic, europe, africa, and asia should all be one continent as well.
A continent is per definition as big that it can have a continental climate. A climate that is independent and different from the weather at the oceans. Therefore Greenland is an island and Australia and Antarctica are not. Also therefore North and South America are two different continents.
The only exeption is Europe. Its western part is not a continent and it’s more or less part of Asia. The nomination of Europe is more historic than logic.
It’s 580% bigger than the largest landmass we say not a continent (Greenland).
Yes it’s an arbitrary definition but the difference between Greenland and Antarctica/Australia is much bigger than Greenland and New Guniea / Borneo.
So Greenland becomes Island, Antarctica becomes continent.
there’s no rule saying what a continent is that people would agree on. Each country uses a different definition in a different context.
Simply put it’s a continent because we say it is. Just like that.
Something that seems to be not addressed here at all is that antartica is not a singular large island like you think. It’s actually an archipelago underneath all of that ice. Australia by contrast is of course a huge island (save for Tasmania).
Because no one has actually answered the question…
Antarctica is not an island because it consists mostly of an archipelago, that is, a chain or group of islands. The reason it doesn’t look like that is because they lie under several miles of ice in some places. Most of the landmass of Antarctica sits well below sea level.
Ita really juat based on different cultures and locations. Each continent with countries are usually pretty aimiliar to each other. Think Asia and Africa. You wouldnt really consider Australia part of Asia because the culture is really different. And North and South America are also pretty different as well.
Australia is not an island it is a continent.
An island is a landmass that is **part of a continen**t and surrounded by water.
A continent is a part of the earth surface that floats on the magma as one part and is above sea level.
We have 7 continents.
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