Short answer
- There are seven continents in the seven continent model, the model most commonly taught in the United States and in most English language reference works. The seven, listed from largest to smallest in area, are Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. Encyclopaedia Britannica defines a continent as a large continuous mass of land conventionally regarded as a collective region, and it gives that same list of seven. National Geographic likewise describes a continent as one of Earth's seven main divisions of land, in the same size order. That word conventionally matters. There is no international body that issues an official count, and other established models give different answers. Some models merge Europe and Asia into one continent, Eurasia, because the two share a single continuous landmass. Some merge North and South America into one continent, America, because the two are joined by land at Panama. Doing both mergers at once gives five or, with a further merger of Africa with Eurasia, four. A separate five continent idea, symbolized by the Olympic rings, counts only the inhabited continents and leaves out Antarctica. So the accurate short answer is this: seven, in the seven continent model. If a reader learned six or five at school, they were probably taught a different model, not a wrong fact. The sections below explain each continent, each model, and the reasons the models differ, so you can answer the question in any setting and name the model you are using.
By Emma Hudson
Ask a classroom in the United States how many continents there are, and the answer will usually be seven. Ask in another country, and the answer may be six, or even five. Both answers can be honest, because a continent is partly a physical landmass and partly a convention, a shared agreement about where to draw lines on a continuous world. This article explains the seven continent model taught in the United States, profiles each of its seven continents, shows how the other models differ, and explains why no single count is enforced worldwide.
The Seven Continents at a Glance
In the seven continent model, geographers usually include the islands associated with each continent as part of that continent. National Geographic gives the examples of Japan, which is counted as part of Asia, and Greenland and the Caribbean islands, which are usually considered part of North America. Together, National Geographic reports, the continents add up to about 148 million square kilometers (57 million square miles) of land, and the ocean covers almost three fourths of Earth.
| Rank by area | Continent | One fact that helps fix it in memory |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Asia | The largest continent, with about 60 percent of Earth’s population, according to National Geographic |
| 2 | Africa | The second largest continent, home to the Sahara, the world’s largest hot desert |
| 3 | North America | The third largest continent, stretching from the Aleutian Islands to the Isthmus of Panama |
| 4 | South America | The fourth largest continent, home to the Andes and the Amazon River and rainforest |
| 5 | Antarctica | The fifth largest continent, larger than Europe or Australia, with no permanent human population |
| 6 | Europe | The sixth largest continent, containing just 7 percent of the world’s land, according to National Geographic |
| 7 | Australia | The smallest continent, and the flattest and second driest after Antarctica, according to National Geographic |
Area order follows Britannica and National Geographic, both of which list the seven in the order Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia. Precise area and population figures for each continent depend on the counting rules behind them, for example whether a figure counts the continent of Australia alone or the wider Oceania region, and whether transcontinental countries are split or assigned whole. This article therefore uses sourced comparisons and rounded figures, and says which source each one comes from, rather than presenting one precise table as if the boundaries behind it were settled.
Asia
Asia is the largest continent in the seven continent model. Britannica gives its size as approximately 44,614,000 square kilometers (17,226,200 square miles), and notes that Asia is more than five times as large as Australia. National Geographic describes Asia stretching from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the western Pacific Ocean, with more than 40 countries, and reports that about 60 percent of Earth’s population lives in Asia, with more than a third of the world’s people living in China and India alone.
Asia is also the most mountainous continent. National Geographic notes that more than 50 of the highest peaks in the world are in Asia, and that Mount Everest, in the Himalaya range, is the highest point on Earth, reaching more than 8,700 meters (29,000 feet). The same source notes that Asia also holds the lowest place on land, the shores of the Dead Sea, more than 390 meters (1,300 feet) below sea level. Asia’s western boundary is the debated one: Asia and Europe share one landmass, and the line between them is a convention, which is why some models do not split them at all.
Africa
Africa is the second largest continent. National Geographic describes it stretching about 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) from north to south, connected to Asia by the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt, and separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea. That narrow land connection at Suez is worth noticing: Africa is almost, but not quite, an island continent, and the four continent model described below uses that connection to merge Africa with Europe and Asia.
The Sahara, which covers much of North Africa, is the world’s largest hot desert, and the Nile flows more than 6,560 kilometers (4,100 miles) to the Mediterranean Sea, according to National Geographic. The same source describes the Great Rift Valley in eastern Africa as a site of major tectonic activity where the continent is slowly splitting, and notes that central and eastern Africa is the area thought to be where hominins, the group that includes modern humans, began to evolve.
North America
North America is the third largest continent. National Geographic describes it extending from the tiny Aleutian Islands in the northwest to the Isthmus of Panama in the south, and including Greenland, the world’s largest island, in the northeast. At Panama’s narrowest part, the continent is just 50 kilometers (31 miles) across. The continent includes Canada, the United States, Mexico, the countries of Central America as far as Panama, Greenland, and the island countries and territories of the Caribbean Sea and the western North Atlantic.
Its landscapes range from the Arctic to the tropics. National Geographic points to the Rockies in the west, older ranges near the east coast, wide central plains, the Great Lakes, which it describes as the planets largest area of fresh water, and more climate variation than any other continent. Most of North America sits on the North American Plate, but not all of it: the Caribbean Plate carries most of the small Caribbean islands and Central America from Honduras to Panama. Continents and tectonic plates do not line up exactly, a point that matters when people try to define continents by geology alone.
South America
South America is the fourth largest continent, connected to North America by the narrow Isthmus of Panama. National Geographic notes that the two continents were not always connected, and came together only about 3 million years ago. That recent, narrow join is the fault line between the models: the seven continent model treats it as enough separation to count two continents, while the combined America model treats the join as one continent.
The Andes, which National Geographic describes as Earth’s longest terrestrial mountain range, stretch the entire length of the continent. In the north, the Amazon River and its tributaries flow through the world’s largest tropical rainforest, and the Amazon carries more water, by volume, than the next six largest rivers combined. South America has twelve independent countries, plus the territories of French Guiana and the Falkland Islands. Almost all of the continent sits on the South American Plate, a cleaner match between continent and plate than North America can offer.
Antarctica
Antarctica is the fifth largest continent, larger than Europe or Australia, and the continent most unlike the other six. National Geographic describes it as the windiest, driest, and iciest place on Earth, centered on the South Pole. Unlike the other continents, it has no permanent human population. The people who live and work there are scientific researchers and support staff, such as pilots and cooks, based at research stations, and its climate makes it impossible to support agriculture or a permanent civilization, with temperatures plunging lower than minus 73 degrees Celsius (minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit).
Antarctica has no countries in the usual sense, which is why models that count only inhabited continents leave it out. It still belongs in the seven continent model for a simple reason: it is a large, distinct, separate landmass, and the model counts landmasses, not populations. Leaving Antarctica out is a choice about what the count is for, not a claim that the landmass is not there. Anyone comparing counts should check whether Antarctica is included before treating two different numbers as a disagreement about geography.
Europe
Europe is the sixth largest continent, and the one whose continental status is most debated. National Geographic reports that Europe contains just 7 percent of the world’s land, that its total area is only slightly larger than Canada, and that its population is nevertheless more than twice that of South America. It has more than 40 countries, and it extends from Iceland in the west to the Ural Mountains of Russia in the east, bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas to the south.
The debate is about its eastern edge. Europe and Asia are one continuous landmass, and National Geographic states plainly that to human geographers the two are culturally distinct, while physically they form a single enormous piece of land called Eurasia. Most geographers continue to divide Eurasia along an imaginary line running from the northern Ural Mountains south to the Caspian and Black Seas. Almost all of Europe sits on the Eurasian Plate, the same plate that carries most of Asia. Europe is therefore the clearest proof that the count rests on history and culture as well as on physical geography.
Australia and Oceania
Australia is the seventh and smallest continent in the seven continent model. National Geographic describes it as the flattest continent, and the second driest after Antarctica. This is also where naming causes the most confusion, so the terms need care.
The continent is Australia, the landmass. Oceania is the wider region centered on the Pacific Ocean, which includes Australia, New Zealand, and the thousands of islands of the Central and South Pacific, usually grouped as Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. National Geographic notes that the continent is sometimes called Oceania in order to include those Pacific islands, and many textbooks write Australia/Oceania as a compromise label for the seventh continent. The landmass being counted is the same under either label.
One caution shows why precision matters here. Sources differ on which islands and land areas they fold into their Australia figures. National Geographic, for example, describes the continent of Australia in its entry as including the nation of Australia, the eastern portion of the island of New Guinea, and New Zealand, and gives an area of just under 8.5 million square kilometers (about 3.5 million square miles). Other references draw the boundary more narrowly. Neither approach changes the count of seven, but they do change any area figure quoted for the seventh continent, which is why this article does not present a single precise figure for it as settled fact.
The Other Models Compared
The seven continent model is one of several established ways to group the world’s land. The differences between models come from two mergers, applied or not applied, plus one question about Antarctica.
| Model | Continents counted | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| 7 continents | Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Australia | Europe and Asia counted separately, and North and South America counted separately |
| 6 continents, Eurasia version | Africa, Antarctica, Eurasia, North America, South America, Australia | Europe and Asia merged, because they share one continuous landmass |
| 6 continents, America version | Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Europe, America, Australia | North and South America merged, because they are joined by land at Panama |
| 5 continents, both mergers | Africa, Antarctica, Eurasia, America, Australia | Both mergers applied at once |
| 5 continents, Olympic version | Africa, America, Asia, Europe, Oceania | Only inhabited continents counted, so Antarctica is left out, and the Americas are counted as one |
| 4 continents | Afro-Eurasia, America, Antarctica, Australia | Africa also merged with Europe and Asia, because Africa is joined to Asia at Suez |
The Eurasia version of the six continent model follows physical geography most strictly at the Europe and Asia boundary: there is no ocean between Europe and Asia, so it counts one continent instead of two. The America version follows the same logic at Panama: North and South America are joined by land, so it counts one continent, America, instead of two. The five continent version that applies both mergers is the consistent result of applying the joined by land rule in both places while still counting Antarctica. The Olympic version is different in kind. The Olympic symbol represents the union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world, and its five are the inhabited ones, with the Americas treated as one and Antarctica, which has no permanent population, not represented. It is a symbol of the inhabited world taking part in the Games, not a ruling that the other landmasses do not exist. The four continent model pushes the joined by land rule furthest, grouping Africa, Europe, and Asia as Afro-Eurasia, since Africa is connected to Asia at Suez. It is rarely taught, because it discards distinctions that history, culture, and everyday use have made useful.
None of these models is a mistake by the people taught it. Each one answers a slightly different question: how the land is physically joined, how regions have been understood historically and culturally, or which parts of the world have permanent populations.
Why the Models Differ
Three kinds of reason pull the count in different directions, and no one of them settles it alone.
The first is physical separation. Oceans separate most continents cleanly, which is why Africa, Antarctica, and Australia are uncontroversial in every model above. But separation fails at the two famous joins. Europe and Asia have no ocean between them, and North and South America are joined by land at Panama. A rule based only on separation by water cannot keep either pair apart, and applying it consistently produces the five or four continent counts, not seven.
The second is geology. Britannica notes that continents loosely correlate with the positions of tectonic plates, and that word loosely does real work. Europe and Asia share much of the Eurasian Plate, which supports the Eurasia model. North and South America, though joined by land, sit mostly on separate plates, which supports counting them apart. National Geographic adds that continents are defined by their continental shelves, the gently sloping areas extending outward from the shore. Geology also explains why the map is not finished: North America and Europe are moving away from each other at about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) per year, according to National Geographic. Plates and shelves inform the count, but they do not dictate a single number.
The third is history, culture, and education tradition. Europe has been treated as a distinct continent for centuries, for historical and cultural reasons, even though it is geographically part of Eurasia. The Americas are treated as one continent in some education traditions and as two in others. Which model a person learned usually depends on where they went to school.
Zealandia and the Geological View
One further name sometimes appears in this discussion: Zealandia. In 2017, a team led by Nick Mortimer of GNS Science in New Zealand published a peer reviewed paper in GSA Today, the journal of the Geological Society of America, arguing that a region of the southwest Pacific is a continent in geological terms. GNS Science summarizes the case as follows: the region covers 4.9 million square kilometers, it is underlain by continental crust rather than oceanic crust, its crust is between 10 and 30 kilometers thick and thicker under parts of the South Island of New Zealand, and it is 94 percent submerged, with New Zealand and New Caledonia among the parts above water. The name Zealandia was first proposed by geophysicist Bruce Luyendyk in 1995.
Two cautions keep this in proportion. First, GNS Science itself notes that there is no formal body to approve a continent, so acceptance, if it comes, will come gradually as other scientists use the name. Second, Zealandia is a geological proposal about continental crust, much of it under the sea. It is not part of the seven continent model taught in schools, and it does not change the classroom answer. It is best described as a scientific proposal with published support, not as a settled eighth continent.
How to Answer in Different Settings
On a school test or quiz in the United States or another English speaking country, answer seven, and list Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Australia. That is the model those tests are built on.
In a conversation where answers differ, name the models instead of arguing about the number: seven where Europe and Asia and the two Americas are counted separately, six where either pair is merged, and five in the Olympic style count of inhabited continents.
When someone insists there is only one correct number, point to the Europe and Asia boundary. If continents had to be physically separate landmasses, Europe would not be a separate continent at all, and the count would fall to six or fewer.
When writing or teaching, name your model. The sentence there are seven continents in the seven continent model is accurate in any company. The same claim with no model named invites a disagreement that is really about definitions, not about the map.
Common Confusions
Is Oceania a continent? In the seven continent model, the continent is Australia. Oceania is the wider Pacific region that includes Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific island groups. Some sources use Oceania as the name for the seventh continent in order to include those islands, which is why the label Australia/Oceania is so common. The count is one either way.
Is Europe really a continent if it is attached to Asia? Under the seven continent convention, yes, because the convention treats Europe and Asia as culturally and historically distinct regions of one landmass. Under the Eurasia model, no. Both positions are used in real education systems, and neither is an error.
Do the five Olympic rings mean there are five continents? No. The rings represent the union of five inhabited groupings and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world, with the Americas counted as one and Antarctica, which has no permanent population, not represented. A symbol designed for sport is not a geographical ruling.
Are there countries on every continent? No. Antarctica has no countries and no permanent population, only research stations staffed by researchers and support workers. Every other continent in the seven continent model contains multiple countries.
Is Greenland a continent? No. Greenland is the world’s largest island, and it is usually considered part of North America. Britannica makes the scale clear: Greenland is only about one fourth the size of Australia, the smallest continent.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many continents are there in the world?
Seven in the seven continent model, the model most commonly taught in the United States and used by major English language references such as Britannica and National Geographic. Other established models count six, five, or four, depending on whether Europe and Asia are merged, whether North and South America are merged, and whether only inhabited continents are counted.
What are the 7 continents?
Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia, listed from largest to smallest in area. The seventh is often written as Australia/Oceania, because Oceania is the wider Pacific region that includes Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific islands.
What is the largest continent?
Asia. Britannica gives its area as approximately 44,614,000 square kilometers (17,226,200 square miles), and National Geographic reports that about 60 percent of Earth’s population lives in Asia.
What is the smallest continent?
Australia, in the seven continent model. It is the seventh in the size order given by both Britannica and National Geographic. Figures quoted for it vary because sources differ on which nearby islands and land areas they include, so treat any single precise area figure for it with care.
Why do some people say there are 6 continents?
Because their model applies one of two mergers. One six continent model merges Europe and Asia into Eurasia, because the two share one continuous landmass with no ocean between them. The other merges North and South America into a single America, because the two are joined by land at Panama. Both versions are taught in real education systems.
Why do some people say there are 5 continents?
For one of two reasons. The Olympic version counts only the inhabited continents, treats the Americas as one, and leaves out Antarctica, which has no permanent population. The other five continent version applies both landmass mergers at once, giving Africa, Antarctica, Eurasia, America, and Australia.
Is Australia or Oceania the seventh continent?
Australia is the continent, the landmass itself. Oceania is the wider region centered on the Pacific Ocean that includes Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific island groups of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Textbooks often write Australia/Oceania to cover both usages, and the continent counted is the same one under either label.
Is Zealandia an eighth continent?
Not in the school models. Zealandia is a geological proposal, published in a peer reviewed paper in 2017, for a largely submerged continent of continental crust in the southwest Pacific, 94 percent of it under water, with New Zealand among its exposed parts. There is no formal body that approves continents, so the proposal stands as published science still awaiting wider adoption, not as a settled addition to the count.
Which continent has no permanent population?
Antarctica. It is larger than Europe or Australia, but it has no countries and no permanent human population. The people there are researchers and support staff working at research stations for limited periods.
Sources & references
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, Continent. Used for the definition of a continent as a large continuous mass of land conventionally regarded as a collective region, for the seven continents listed in order of size as Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia, for Europe and Asia sometimes being considered a single continent, Eurasia, for continents loosely correlating with tectonic plates, for Asia at approximately 44,614,000 square kilometers (17,226,200 square miles) and more than five times as large as Australia, and for Greenland being about one fourth the size of Australia. https://www.britannica.com/science/continent
- National Geographic, Continent, encyclopedic entry. Used for a continent as one of Earth's seven main divisions of land in the same size order, for islands associated with a continent being counted as part of it, for the continents totaling about 148 million square kilometers, for continental shelves defining continents, for Europe and Asia as one landmass, Eurasia, divided for cultural and historical reasons along a line from the Ural Mountains to the Caspian and Black Seas, for North America and Europe moving apart at about 2.5 centimeters per year, and for the continent by continent details of extent, landforms, rivers, deserts, plates, and populations attributed to it in the text, including Asia at about 60 percent of Earth's population, the Sahara as the world's largest hot desert, Europe at just 7 percent of the world's land, Antarctica as larger than Europe or Australia with no permanent human population, and Australia as the smallest, flattest, and second driest continent, sometimes called Oceania to include the Pacific islands. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/Continent/
- GNS Science, New hidden continent mostly underwater, scientists say, media release, 17 February 2017. Used for the Zealandia proposal: the 2017 peer reviewed GSA Today paper led by Nick Mortimer, the 4.9 million square kilometer area, 94 percent submerged, continental crust 10 to 30 kilometers thick and more than 40 kilometers under parts of the South Island, the name proposed by Bruce Luyendyk in 1995, and the point that there is no formal body to approve a continent. https://www.gns.cri.nz/news/new-hidden-continent-mostly-underwater-scientists-say/
- International Olympic Committee, The Olympic Rings. Used for the Olympic symbol and its meaning: the five interlaced rings represent the union of the five inhabited continents of the world and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world at the Olympic Games. https://olympics.com/ioc/olympic-rings
