Continent

 

A continent is a large continuous land mass. The world was first divided into continents by the geographers of Hellenistic Alexandria. Taking Alexandria as a prime meridian, they divided the oikoumene or habitable earth into three parts: Asia was east of Alexandria, Europe was west of Alexandria and north of the Mediterranean Sea, and Libya, known by the Romans as Africa, was west of Alexandria and south of the Mediterranean.

Geologically, the surface of Earth consists of many tectonic plates. Some of them are continental plates, largely covered by thick, relatively light metamorphic and sedimentary rock such as granite which floats on the Earth's mantle, and much of which is visible as dry land; and the rest are oceanic plates, consisting of a thin basaltic layer of solidified mantle, and covered by a sea punctuated with basaltic volcanos. There are six large continental plates, which give the following geologically recognized continents, from the largest to the smallest:

1. Eurasia mostly on the Eurasian Plate
2. Africa on the African Plate
3. North America mostly on the North American Plate
4. South America on the South American Plate
5. Antarctica on the Antarctic Plate
6. Australia on the Australian Plate 

 

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