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Same Earth — So Why Do Continent Counts Differ?

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Transcript

  1. Why does the number of continents change depending on who's counting?
  2. We assume oceans split them, so the count is fixed.
  3. Think of a pizza. Six slices or eight? Same pizza — it depends on how you cut it.
  4. Europe and Asia are really one landmass. The border is a line people drew along the Urals.
  5. The Americas are joined by a thin strip of land, so some count them as one.
  6. Some skip Antarctica, which has no native people. Korean even has a word for 'six continents' — no Antarctica. The Olympic rings leave it out too.
  7. So none of them is wrong. The count is an agreement.
  8. Seven or six? Drop just the number in the comments.

Sources

  1. National Geographic Education, "Continent" (Encyclopedic Entry)
  2. 국립국어원 표준국어대사전, 「육대주(六大洲)」
  3. IOC, "Olympic rings - Symbol of the Olympic Movement"
  4. Smithsonian Insider, "Recent connection between North and South America reaffirmed" (2016-08)
  5. CIA World Factbook (archive 2023), "Population" field — Antarctica: no indigenous inhabitants
  6. IOC, Olympic Charter, Rule 8 "The Olympic symbol"
  7. Wikipedia, "Continent" (2차, 교차 확인용)
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