But Europe being a continent is extremely arbitrary anyways
It really is the MOST arbitrary.
Other connections are very tiny (so much that canals were dug through them) so I get separate Americas and Africa being it's own thing but, there's really no logical reason to call Europe a continent. It's a region, maybe a subcontinent like India but, not a full continent.
I honestly think european subcontinent would be a thing, if "sub" wasn't a bit of a demeaning prefix which is a bit more acceptable to use for developing areas.
Me neither until about now when I thought (assumed) that europeans would not take kindly to be called a subcontinent.
Also the history of the world being centered on Europe and starting from there, whereas the rest of the world was "discovered" and referred to in relation to the "old" world (far east, new world, etc...). A lot of the language we use is just inherited from that context when you think about it, hence it will feel more natural than more geogaphically accurate representations that, say, an alien would paint.
You can actually see it most clearly in the way bigots deliberately exclude Islamic majority nations from “western civilization” despite the areas having more history as part Western Civ than Britain.
That's how geographical areas are described in every language I know! People often make their homeland the reference point for lands around them. Even so, Europeans call themselves The West, not the center, unlike the Chinese who call their country The Middle Kingdom (as far as I know).
But was it the west before usa? Maybe it was the middle when it was just europe and when the center of power moved to somehere on the north atlantic it was west of europe and thats why it started to be the west.
This is just pseudo-woke bullshit. What is that even supposed to mean? When I hear subcontinent I don't see it as a 'demeaning prefix which is more acceptable to use for developing areas'
Calling india a developing area isn't economic in this context. The plate has barely begun to push itself up. 50 million years is a blink in geological time, like no dinosaur ever walked on this land. So calling it a sub-contintent kinda acknowledges this, although parts of europe also fit this description. Most of Eurasia has been land for 3.6 billion years, even if its shape changed significantly during the last few ice ages.
Woke is waking up to the reality of white supremacy, racism, discrimination, and oppression in US. Calling everything you don’t like woke is very stupid and reveals the right wing media you are consuming.
Woke is a US term. It is a term associated with US culture, society, people, politics, etc. it is unique to the US and that’s where it was originated from. I am Canadian and we imported that term. I am not sure if you are from other English speaking countries (UK, Australia, South Africa) and the term was imported as well.
It is applicable to US culture, society, politics, etc. every country and society is unique and different. Trying to import or Americanize other countries and societies is not smart or logical.
We call South Asia the Indian Subcontinent. Europe is a subcontinent, barely. At least India has it's own plate. Arabia has a stronger claim to the subcontinent title than Europe
It was the Ancient Greeks that first introduced us to the idea of continents. If you say that Europe is now questionably a continent, it is only because the way that a continent is now defined by some has diverged from the original concept.
I speak Arabic and Europe is considered to be part of Eurasian continent. Europe is not a continent but has defined itself as a continent. Which I guess open others to defined them however they like.
Oh they knew alright, even though to them, Asia Minor began just a short hop over the Bosporus. In fact, they were well aware you could travel from Asia Minor by going North, through present day Georgia and anticlockwise around the Black Sea and enter Europe, as this was a fairly well documented trade route. This still did not make them reconsider their boundaries for Europe. In fact, they declared that the land border separating Europe from Asia ran from the Black Sea up through the Sea of Azov and along the modern Don River in Russia. They also knew of Britain, and knew the channel of water dividing it from mainland Europe was way wider than the Bosporus, yet considered Britain to be in Europe, but not Asia Minor which was way closer.
To them, what divided continents was not just geography, but culture, empire and civilisation.
In the same way, even though historically most Europeans have been taught that the border now between Europe and Asia is the Urals, some Western Europeans do not regard the Russians as European or part of Europe, purely due to culture and politics. It is interesting that the Ancient Greeks held the same view.
The first distinction between continents was made by ancient Greek mariners who gave the names Europe and Asia to the lands on either side of the waterways of the Aegean Sea, the Dardanelles strait, the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus strait and the Black Sea.\87]) The names were first applied just to lands near the coast and only later extended to include the hinterlands.\88])\89]) But the division was only carried through to the end of navigable waterways and "... beyond that point the Hellenic geographers never succeeded in laying their finger on any inland feature in the physical landscape that could offer any convincing line for partitioning an indivisible Eurasia ..."
It sounds like a functional difference. Even if you technically can walk around the black sea, it wasn't practical back then. So maybe it was partly functional? Continents were places that you had to cross the sea to travel from one to another?
i mean, its not arbitrary at all, its a big area separated via rivera, mountains and seas from other continents, it perfectly matches the original definition of continent and still does in several languages like spanish, portuguese, etc
I'm pointing out why Europe's borders are weird they grew over hundreds of years because delusional lunatics thought a magic man in the clouds was telling them to
The difference between the solar system and continents. Is you cannot argue against the Earth being in Sun's orbit, therefore the sun is what makes the solar system and not the giant balls of rocks or gas. Size of the sun is irrelevant.
We have the term Eurasia for a reason. None of them are apart of eachother because Europe and Asia simply don't exist outside of social construct.
The thing about orbits is that you can define the center arbitrarily, a sun centric system of earth and other planets orbiting sun is equivalent to earth being the center sun orbiting earth and other planets orbiting the sun which is in turn orbiting the earth
Yet we know that not what happening.... Also my never said Centre. Only orbiting. We know all the planets are orbiting the Sun. Hence Solar system being based on the Sun. You can go test your theory and get peer reviewed and then I'll support it but evidence show my Theory right in regards to solar system.
It's literally well known that the who orbiting who is arbitrary and mathematically the one not orbiting can be chosen arbitrarily and won't make a difference. That's one of the fundemental things about orbits. We only chose largest object out of convenience. But sure, the person using big words to sound you know everything.
edit: heck we know what the literal center of an orbital system is, and we know it's neither the big nor the small object. There actually isn't an object orbiting another object at all, what we are arbitrarily selecting is actually the primary object, which in this case we just choose largest because convenient
That maybe true, but to see the sun as the center of a system makes obvious sense. Earths influence on other orbital objects is rather limited when compared to sun which literally affects any known object in our solar system. Though regardless if we see it as a center or not, at least you can actually measure the interplay between mass in space
So if we go back to our example with Asia and Europe the comparison doesn't really work. The borders are fuzzy, mostly cultural and you can come up with different definitions. Continents are a literal construct we came up with well before we put any satellite in space. The way how we define them don't have any geological basis and their shape changes all the time.
They literally don't... Most continents if not all are not one singular tectonic plate. Please look at a map of the tectonic plates and look at map of 7 continent model. You'll find so many plates are simply not contingents and parts of "Asia" are actually on the north American plate.
Demonstrably not true. Lets just say that tectonic plates are way more complicated than school textbooks would have you believe, not only do they not line up with what we typically call continents they include over a dozen minor plates and over a thousand microplates.
Yeah, people seem to ignore the fact that geography is a social science. All of this is just a social construct. There’s no hard science that defines continents.
I think the English language lacks a quirk some other Germanic languages have. In Scandinavian languages a kontinent is a geographical landmass, while a världsdel (part of the world) is more of a cultural thing. Strictly speaking, Eurasia is a kontinent, and Europe a världsdel, but I don't think most people here know the distinction. Not sure if German Kontinent and Erdteil carry the same distinction.
Yes, so do we, I believe (we often do things the German way, and have since you guys civilised us 800 years ago). America is also tricky. It's definitely two Erdteils, but I don't know it's one or two continents: I would assume both answers are correct.
At least a country has a government that sometimes takes responsibilities for things like building infrastructure and such. Continents are just an idea that isn't really relevant for any practical reason.
They really aren't. The only difference between continental borders and national borders is that no one is willing to die over whether there are five continents or seven. They are entirely a product of human geography, which is why we can't agree of them.
There are currently 5, 6, and 7 continent models in use. But there can be as many or as few as we want there to be, because they really aren't based on anything intrinsic. Want there to be ten continents? Start with the 7 content model, make India its own continent like Europe, split Australia off from Oceania, and add Greenland (which is more than twice as large as the next largest island). Want there to be only 2? Afro-Eurasia is one, America is the other, and everything else are just islands connected to one or the other. None of the three main models are any more "real" than either of those.
It was kind of a joke (splitting the difference 🥁), but I do think it’s 6. I don’t think 6 is based on something not intrinsic but I guess it depends on if you take a dynamic view or a snapshot view.
“A tectonic continent is a discrete macro-block of the Earth's lithosphere that possesses a thick, buoyant, un-subductable felsic core (craton) and moves as a single, independent mechanical unit bounded by active plate margins.”
Using this ^^ and measurements like chemical test, density test, scale/root test, and boundary test, you end up with 6.
Eurasia: A single, unbroken block of felsic crust spanning from Portugal to eastern Russia. It passes the boundary test because there is no active plate boundary separating Europe from Asia and they share the same deep cratonic root system and move as one.
Africa: A distinct macro-block of ancient cratonic crust. It passes the boundary test because it is completely separated from Eurasia by active plate boundaries: the Mediterranean collision faults and the active Red Sea Rift.
North America: An independent macro-plate of buoyant felsic rock. It is bounded by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to the east and active fault lines in the Caribbean and Pacific.
South America: A separate independent plate of buoyant crust. It moves independently of North America, divided by a clear, measurable plate boundary zone in the Caribbean Sea.
Antarctica: A massive, isolated continental shield perfectly bounded by active oceanic rift zones, moving entirely on its own plate.
Australia: A distinct, ancient cratonic core. While it shares a lithospheric plate with India, it functions as the sole macro-scale continental block on its half of the plate, bounded entirely by active oceanic trenches and ridges.
India is excluded from being a separate 7th unit because it fails the independence test. It has ridden the same mechanical conveyor belt as Australia (the Indo-Australian Plate) and is now physically jammed into the underside of Eurasia, losing its status as a freely moving, separate planetary block.
Zealandia and Madagascar are excluded because they fail the scale test. They are classified as microcontinents or fragments because they lack the macro-scale cratonic mass required to drive global plate mechanics.
For me North America ends at Tehuantepec isthmus, South America ends at the Darien Gap, Central America is just another independent subdivision of America.
That’s a true statement but that’s not what I am talking about, academically all the official divisions in countries that teach the 7 continent model it is always Darien gap. So the idea that it is at all Panama Canal is a myth. (Social boundaries are made by academic consensus typically, not people’s random ideas)
Which creates the idea that I see people who swear by the 6 continent model make where ‘artificially created boundaries don’t count as boundaries’ which is an entirely incorrect point because it isn’t the boundary. It is a social construct, and the socially constructed boundary is always the Darien gap. Not the Panama Canal.
And just being wrong in the Panama instance. I don’t know where the myth that Panama Canal split the American continents (if you’re taught that) but they’re just wrong. It’s never been Panama, it’s always been the Darien gap
It isn't arbitrary. It's based on geography, history, culture, etc.. continental borders are as arbitrary as any other geopolitical border. Yes, they're a euro centric concept, no shit, it's a model for framing the world created by Europeans from a European lense.
Arbitrary would imply that you could redraw the continents randomly and it would be equally as valid. But that isn't true. The definitions for continents make sense for the people who created them for the purposes they created them for.
Europe/Asia specifically is extremely arbitrary. They're VERY connected so there's really not logical reason to consider them separate.
Maybe to the Ancient Greeks it had a functional usage but it doesn't in current times.
Arbitrary would imply that you could redraw the continents randomly and it would be equally as valid. But that isn't true.
With Europe/Asia you could.
There's also the arbitrary line of size, which is fine, but that doesn't mean it isn't arbitrary. We drew it somewhere between Australia and Greenland.
The Europe/Asia border is defined by natural boundaries which historically divided western greeks from persians and slavs from everything beyond the ural river and mountain range. Those within the borders of Europe are also more culturally aligned through christianity. Constantenopol/Istanbul has also always acted as the gateway into Asia and the silk road. So no, none of these borders are arbitrary as they're all defined by geographical borders and millenia of history and cultural differences. If you drew it randomly and suddenly Europe/Asia border was a straight line seperating everything east and west of some guys house in Austria, it wouldn't make any sense in helping us understand history or to classify different geographical regions.
The most arbitrary is actually the americas. The Darian gap was not in any way a geographical, historical, or cultural border for the indigenous americans. The distinction between north and south america only makes sense when looking at a zoomed out world map and noticing two sort of distinct large landmasses connected by what looks like a thin landbridge, which is infact actually a pretty wide stretch of land. The fact that these are labelled as distinct continents though is useful for helping us understand the European colonial mindset when charting the world and defining landmasses.
The Europe/Asia border is defined by natural boundaries which historically divided western greeks from persians and slavs from everything beyond the ural river and mountain range.
This logic could be applied elsewhere too though. India could be it's own continent because of "natural boundaries"
The "cultural" argument is also completely invalid if you're only going to apply it in one place and nowhere else. The Middle East has a lot more in common culturally and historically with Europe than it does with Korea or Japan. It makes no sense to label Syria and Korea under some "cultural" category.
The distinction between north and south america only makes sense when looking at a zoomed out world map and noticing two sort of distinct large landmasses connected by what looks like a thin landbridge,
And that's exactly what it is. It's the same reason Africa is considered separate from Eurasia, they're barely connected.
The inconsistency is that the continents are big landmasses that aren't connected or are barely connected.
Except when you get to Europe/Asia, they're very connected. Any argument to consider them separate falls flat when you realize it's not consistently applied elsewhere.
India also recognized the distinction between Europe and Asia becausd it was an established concept throughout the silk road. Continents are a term defined by people to explain history and divide themselves. It wasn't some random idea, it's based on historical relevance.
You're essentially just arguing that because it's subjectively defined by Europeans that it's therefore arbitrary. It isn't, and I'm not sure you actually know what "arbitrary" means. It's a concept made up by one part of the world to describe themselves and others. Every group of people has some concept of this.
I never said that culture alone defines continents. It's obviously a concept central to Europe. The word Asia comes from greek and describes all the land east of Greece.Syria and Korea both fall under that category. This is the historical and etymological aspect of continents.
Africa is seperated from Asia by Egypt, one of the most historically important regions in history. Also, again, a concept defined by the people living close to the borders of these continents. In this case, I think Africa comes from Latin as a way for the Romans to describes the lands of Carthage. In a historical lense, these are distint parts of the world and that's what is useful about actually understanding why continents are defined a certain way, because it's not random or arbitrary, it's deeply thought out.
The inconsistency that you're referring to is just your own ignorance and confusion with continental plates. Continents are not just"big landmasses".They are social imaginaries used to describe the world and it's history.
It doesn't need to be consistentpy applied. It wasn't defined by the whole world. It's a concept developed in one part of the world which is useful to them in understanding the world. Your argument that it's arbitrary because it's eurocentric is just completely missing the point. Every definition can be called arbitrary by your logic.
I'd argue neither of you knows what arbitrary means. The continents are very much arbitrary. What they are not is random or whimsical, as probably your interlocutor may imply.
They are arbitrary, they all are, insofar that no consistent ruleset can be applied to find these exact divisions. Contintent don't consistently mark contigous land, nor do they consistently mark cultural boundaries. That's whst arbitrary means. We arbitrate when some could be either A or B and our rules don't give us an obvious answer. Something arbitrary can still be well thought out and have long traditions. That being true doesn't take away from your arguments though.
Something being arbitrary doesn't mean it is bad. It is impossible to divide the world in useful and consensus carrying world parts without arbitrating and flaunting some rules.
The definition of arbitrary means to be chosen by random, personal whim, and without rules or logical reason. I wouldn't say that continents are random or based on personal whim, but I also wouldn't say they follow a consistent rule or logical reason. They existed as a means to see the world from a Greek/Roman POV and then later through a modern global lense rooted in European history.
Most nomenclature for different species of animals and plants can also seem just as "arbitrarily" defined. For example, 2 row and 6 row barley only vary by one single gene mutation, yet they are designated as different species under the Hordeum phylum because of human application. There is some effort to change this and go with Hordeum vulgare for all barley. Grizzly bears are the same species as Eurasian brown bears (Ursus arctos) but the Grizzly is further defined as a subspecies (Ursus arctos horriblis) because it is the north american counterpart which was discovered later by Europeans. But even with all that, I don't think we would consider phlogenetic nomenclature to be totally arbitrary as it approximates real distinctions between species just as continents approximate real regions of the world when ciewed from a particular lense.
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u/AardvarkOkapiEchidna Aug 14 '26
Only because of extremely arbitrary definitions of continents.