Poll: Favorite Continent

Asia!....Because I'm Indian! Yay.

Abe abe, I forgot to say Asia because I am battameej & pagal!!!���

I voted for Pangaea but only because Gondwanaland wasn't a choice. Damn Northern Hemisphere bias.

I thought this was one of my polls at first. Sorry if you take that as in insult :-)

mee too.

israel isn't on a continent. if it were, that would be my favourite one.

Yes it is, It is in Asia. All land not on a island is on a continent. Some Islands are even considered parts of continents. Manhattan and Greenland for instance.

And Japan!

do most people consider israel to be in asia? the un sure doesn't.

Israel and the rest of the Middle East technically are western/central Asia.

Map of Asia

nah, i hope i'm not coming off as too militant, but i really see continent-counting as almost more of a political/historical thing than a physical thing (like, why are europe & asia two continents). israel could be in asia or africa, it could even be in europe.

That Europe and Asia are considered different contintents is a historical accident going back to the greek's incomplete knowledge of geography. In the region they knew they were distinct land masses separated by water. They are connected to the north and the Urals and Caucuses became somewhat arbitrary dividing line.

Other than that continents have real geographic and geologic meaning. Israel is on the same plate as Eurasia and a separate one than Africa. It is connected by land to Africa only by a small strip of sand on the edges of Sinai. Actually since the building of the Suez canal it is not connected at all to Africa.

As for Europe it is in the region where the definition arose. You must cross water to get to Europe unless you go the long way around the Black Sea.

You can walk to China from Israel, if you have a really comfortable pair of shoes.

There are instances where people loosely use the term continents otherwise to reflect political and economic provisions. That is not the definition though, it is making divisions on a basis that makes sense in a limited area. Northern New Jersey is considered part of Greater New York even though they are in different states. You would still never say that Hoboken is in New York.

technically speaking most continents are islands.

australia, antarctica, north and south america (with the panama canal), africa (with the suez canal)... europe and asia are not separately islands, but are when taken together.

Cuz it looks like a chicken breast...

*laugh*

Africa looks kinda like a pork chop...

So South America might be kosher, but Africa definitely isn't...

I had to go with Pangaea. plate tectonics was my favorite subject in Geology!! :D

because of panir masala, mmmmy!

In high school, I had this conversation with my history teacher:

Melissa- we've always learned that there are 3 countries in North America
Teacher- yes
M- but what continent would you say Central America is on
T- technically, I guess it's part of North America
M- Do you think they teach us that there are only 3 countries in North America because they also teach us that Central American countries are generally poorer than the United States, and they seem "foreign", and don't want them to be part of our greater political realm?
T- Melissa, I think you're over-thinking this.

I think at the time I didn't have the word "geopolitical." I know we've talked about "Americans" being US vs. people in the Western Hemisphere. How about "North Americans" being people in "political" North America vs. "continental" North America?

Apparently the US is one of the few places where two Americas are taught in the first place. Many places simply label the whole thing, north and south (and central) as 'America'.

It just goes along with the whole "we're the best" mentality that "americans" have.

Well, not only that - I think it's pretty logical to call North and South America separate continents. I mean, they're way more separate than Europe and Asia and no one really disputes that distinction.

where do they teach a single america?

i mean, i've heard references to "the americas" but that implicitly indicates more than one america. it just doesn't name each of them individually.

Japan, Iran and Latin America, according to wikipedia. At least, those are the places that teach six continents with a single America. There may be others that teach five continents - one America and Eurasia, or four - one America and Afrasia/Afro-Eurasia, and others that teach six with two Americas and Eurasia, or various other combinations.

The reason I bring it up is that I remember a conversation I had with someone from Chile once who said that they just knew the whole place as 'America', not North and South.

the even weirder thing is that in common parlance in canada, "north america" means canada & the united states only.

one of my teachers was talking about an exhibition in the school gallery put on by mexican & southern californian artists, & she referred to the clash of "mexican culture meeting north american culture"

It always bugged me when central america was left out of North American. You just look at a map and you see it is all one piece.

If the distinction was that they are poorer why wasn't Mexico lumped with central America. That would make more sense to me politcally and geographically. I think it has more to do with the fact that it is made up of a group of very small countries while "North America" is made up of three large ones.