What parts of the world are distinguished on Earth

Man began to divide the land into regions from time immemorial. With the development of large territories, it became necessary to designate them for a better understanding of land ownership. Parts of the world are large areas of land that include continents or large parts of them, including nearby islands. They are associated with historical development society, and are not equivalent.

How many and what parts of the world are there on Earth?

Divide land into different regions began in antiquity. In those days, three parts of the world were known: Europe, Asia and Africa, also called the Old World. During the period of great geographical discoveries, three more areas were mastered, including America, Australia and Antarctica, also called the New World. Thus, today the world is usually divided into six parts of the world. Some of them territorially coincide with the continents, and the Eurasian continent is divided into two large parts.

Australia and Oceania

Australia and Oceania on the map

At the same time, it is the smallest continent and part of the Earth, with an area of ​​7.6 million km². federal state Australia includes 6 states. More than 24 million people live here, the population density is very low.

The region is made up of islands and atolls. pacific ocean. Their total area is 1.24 million km². Oceania includes more than 10 independent countries and about 30 territories dependent on other states. The population exceeds 10 million people.

Asia

Asia on the map

It is located in the eastern part of Eurasia and ranks first among all parts of the world both in terms of area and population. The area of ​​the territory is about 44.58 million km². The natural boundary between Europe and Asia is Ural mountains. There are about 50 countries in Asia. More than 4 billion people live here, the ethnic composition of which is very diverse.

America

America on the map

America consists of two continents located in and hemispheres. The total area is 42.55 million km². There are 36 states and 17 independent territories in America. The population is about 1 billion people, most of which live in Latin America.

Antarctica

Antarctica on the map

It occupies the territory of the same continent. This part of the world was discovered in 1820. The area of ​​Antarctica is 14.11 million km². There is no permanent population, and the temporary population is up to 5,000 thousand people. The land does not belong to any state. According to international treaty 1959, the territory is demilitarized. On the continent there are several polar stations belonging to different countries. They conduct exclusively scientific activities.

Africa

Africa on the map

Another part of the world known since antiquity is. The ancient Greeks called it Libya. The size of this part of the world is approximately 30.3 million km². It is located in the southern and northern hemispheres of the Earth, passes through the territory of the continent. Africa is the cradle of humanity. Today there are 54 states in which 1.1 billion people live.

Europe

Europe on the map

Europe lies in the western part of the Eurasian continent, its area is 10.18 million km². Numerous large islands and peninsulas adjoin it. Today Europe is the largest political and cultural center Earth. There are 43 states on its territory. Part of the world is characterized by a high population density. About 10% of the world's population lives here.

How are parts of the world different from continents?

By the mainland is meant a huge part of the land, surrounded on all sides and. In different historical times, the number of continents was not the same. The division into continents is due to geographical and geological features. Parts of the world include the continents or part of them. These also include the islands closest to the continents. The division of land into parts of the world is associated with historical and cultural events.

Parts of the world and oceans

Europe is washed by 10 seas of the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans. The Asian part of the world is washed by three oceans. The Pacific and Indian Oceans are the main sea ​​routes. Therefore, the bays and coastal seas of the Asian part of Eurasia are actively used in world shipping.

From the northwest, Australia is washed by the Indian Ocean. The Pacific Ocean adjoins it from the east. The islands of Oceania are located in the Pacific and Indian oceans.

The southernmost part of the world, Antarctica, is washed by three oceans: the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific. Some oceanographers combine the waters of these oceans into a separate Southern Ocean.

North America is washed by three oceans: the Arctic, Pacific and Atlantic. The Pacific and Atlantic oceans adjoin the shores of South America.

The shores of Africa are washed by the waters of the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The southern points of America and Africa are located close enough to Antarctica and are washed by the Southern Ocean.

Which countries are located in two parts of the world?

Russia has a huge territory. Occupying an impressive part of the continent, it is located simultaneously in the European and Asian parts of the world.

The Scandinavian country of Denmark is located in the northwest of Europe. It also includes Greenland. Geographically, it belongs to North America, so it can be argued that Denmark is located in two parts of the world.

Egypt is located in Africa and Asia at the same time. The small Sinai Peninsula, which belongs to this country, belongs to the Middle East. It is in the Sinai that oil deposits are located and beautiful resorts. Most of the country is located in the desert African lands.

The Republic of Yemen, located in Southwest Asia, belongs to the Socotra archipelago in Indian Ocean, which refers to the African part of the world.

Indonesia is the largest archipelago. Its islands are located on both sides of the equator. The northern part of the republic is located in Asia, and the southern part is in Oceania.

The main part of the territory of Spain is located in the south-west of Europe. The remnant of the once vast Spanish colonial empire in Africa is the enclave of Vanity.

Two thirds of Kazakhstan's territories are in Asia. A small part of it lies in Europe. Azerbaijan and Turkey are on the border between Europe and Asia.

USA is located in North America. However, the state owns several land areas in the Pacific Ocean, which belongs to Oceania.

Unique. To make it easier for people to understand what place in question, scientists came up with names for land, dividing it into continents, continents, parts of the world. All these are different concepts, and each of them has a specific designation. So how does part of the world differ from the mainland and what continents exist?

To begin with, it is worth understanding what a mainland is. This is a huge landmass, which is washed by the seas and oceans.

difference between and part of the world

In geography, the term "continent" is often used, which means the mainland. Although the two are not synonymous. IN different countries world continental models of perception of the world are different. In India and China, as well as in English European countries It is generally accepted that there are seven continents. The Spanish-speaking countries and the countries of South America use a model that distinguishes six continents. IN Eastern Europe and Greece, it is generally accepted that there are five continents: these countries consider only those territories where people live to be continents, they do not include Antarctica in the list. In Russia and the approximate countries of Eurasia, it is believed that there are four continents.

To understand how part of the world differs from the mainland, one should understand the entire model of the division of the Earth.

Continents

The mainland is a large part of the land, washed by the seas and oceans. There are six continents in total: the largest is Eurasia. Its area is almost 55 million square kilometers. In second place is Africa with an area of ​​thirty million square kilometers. A little less than her North America then South America. In fifth place in size is Antarctica. The smallest continent is Australia. All these continents are separated by seas and oceans, although there are formations separated by a land border. These continents are North and South America, which are divided by the Isthmus of Panama. Between Africa and Eurasia is the Isthmus of Suez.

And what is the difference between part of the world and the mainland and the continent? To understand this, you should know, Unlike the continents, the continents do not have land borders. Based on this, scientists divided the entire land into four continents: Afro-Eurasia, America, Antarctica and Australia.

Parts of the world

Knowing how part of the world differs from the mainland, one can understand the geographical system of dividing the Earth. So, the terms "mainland" and "continent" have a scientific justification and meaning, but "part of the world" is the division of land on a historical and cultural basis. The following parts of the world are distinguished:

• Europe.
• Asia.
• America, or the New World.
• Africa.
• Australia and Oceania.
• Antarctica.

When talking about parts of the world, they mean not only large areas of land, but also the islands adjacent to them.

Answering the question of how the concepts of "mainland" and "part of the world" differ, we can say that the mainland is land surrounded by water bodies, and part of the world is the land developed by people located on these continents.

Islands

Now we know how the mainland differs from part of the world, and how does it differ from the island? By definition, both the mainland and the island are land that is washed by oceans or seas. However, these concepts have differences.

1. Size. The smallest continent - Australia - Greenland.
2. Education. All the continents of the Earth have a tiled origin. According to scientists, once there was only one. It was split, because of which Laurasia and Gondwana appeared, which broke into six more parts. Islands are formed by different ways, including during volcanic eruptions, under the action of polyps, as a result of the movement of plates.
3. Habitability. Many islands are still uninhabited, unlike the mainland. Even in the harsh Antarctica there are people.

Continents are parts of the land of large size, washed by the waters of the oceans and seas, and parts of the world are the same land with which some historical and cultural events are associated. Part of the world may include several continents and islands.

How many parts of the world are there on Earth? Europeans in the 16th century divided the world into four continents: Africa, America, Asia and Europe. It seemed that each of them represented its own quadrant of the world. Europe - on - in the east, Africa - in the south and America - in the west. This division corresponded to the trends of that era - then the world was divided into four seasons, four classical elements, four cardinal directions, and so on.

Ancient Three-Way World

How many parts of the world are there on Earth? At a time when people still did not know anything about America, Australia and Antarctica, there were not so many of them. Before the discovery of the New World in classical and medieval geography, three parts of the world of the Earth were distinguished - Europe, Asia and Africa. As Laurent de Premierfeit (an eminent French translator of Latin literature in the early fifteenth century) once told his readers: "Asia is one of the three parts of the world that extends to the East until the rising sun."

Seen through the eyes of a modern geographer, the Ural Mountains, which separate Europe from Asia, represent a geological seam between two fragmentary continents or cratons. Another dividing factor was the Hellespont ( ancient name Dardanelles). He neatly separated Europe from Asia. From a European point of view, in the Age of Discovery, Asia began beyond the Hellespont, where the Roman province was located, extending to incredibly exotic and remote places...

How many parts of the world are there on Earth?

In the sixteenth century, America was full of fascinating promises of a New World. So the fourth part of the world appeared. With the official confirmation that Australia was an island continent, the four-continent theme lost much of its relevance long before the sixth continent, Antarctica, was discovered. However, despite this, the iconography of the "Four Corners of the World" has been preserved in its original form.

Parts of the world and continents

A total of six continents, of which the smallest is Australia, and the largest is Eurasia, which is geologically one, but for convenience it has been divided into Europe and Asia. A conditional border was drawn between them along the Ural Mountains.

Parts of the world, as well as the continents, there are six. Asia is the most densely populated and mountainous. America consists of two continents, which are connected by the Isthmus of Panama. Africa is separated from Asia by the Suez Canal. There are also continents that do not touch the rest - these are Australia and icy Antarctica.

A single array, dispersed on different sides

It is quite likely, as some scientists believe, that all the continents were once one whole, a single array, which over time broke into pieces under the influence of the internal forces of the Earth. There is an assumption that certain areas on the planet have risen, while others, on the contrary, have fallen. The mystery of the appearance of the continents still remains topical issue in geography, people still have only one thing left - to build various hypotheses. Perhaps a future generation of scientists will be able to shed light on the endless mysteries of the universe.

How do parts of the world differ from continents?

What are the parts of the world and how do they differ from the continents? Let's figure it out. Continents are large segments of land that protrude from the bosom of the oceans. Parts of the world are classified as regions into which the surface of the planet is conditionally divided for historical and cultural reasons. The difference between them lies in the fact that these concepts are used in completely different areas from each other. The main difference is that the "mainland" is a geological and geographical term, and "part of the world" is a concept associated with history, culture, politics.

Continents are of interest, first of all, as real physical objects. Geology and geography are engaged in their detailed study, including the study of powerful processes that occur on Earth. As a rule, the continents are separated from each other by oceans, but there are those that are the closest neighbors (Eurasia).

How many parts of the world are there on Earth? Despite the fact that their borders and the borders of the continents do not coincide 100%, there are also six of them in number. Eurasia, for example, is one continent, but is divided into two parts of the world - Europe and Asia. The situation is slightly different in America. There, two continents form one part of the world. Only Africa, Australia, Antarctica coincide.

A continent (the term "mainland" may also be used for this concept) is generally defined as a very large landmass surrounded by water on all sides and comprising a series of independent states. However, when it comes to the number of continents on Earth, experts are not always unanimous. Depending on the criteria used, there may be four, five, six or seven continents. Sounds weird, right? Let's see how things really are!

Definition of "Continent"

The Glossary of Geology, published by the American Geoscience Institute, defines a continent as one of the major land masses, including land and continental shelf. Other characteristics of the continent include:

• Land areas that are elevated in relation to the surrounding ocean floor;
• Variety of rocks, including volcanic, metamorphic and sedimentary;
• Bark that is thicker than the surrounding oceanic crust. For example, continental crust can vary in thickness from about 29 to 45 km, while oceanic crust is typically about 6 km thick;
• Clearly defined boundaries.

This last characteristic is the least well defined, according to the Geological Society of America, leading to confusion among experts as to how many continents there are. Moreover, there is no global governing body to develop a consensus definition.

How many continents are there really?

Examples of continental earth models

Using the criteria defined above, many geologists say that there are six continents or continents: Africa, Antarctica, Australia, North and South America, and Eurasia. The same model for dividing the main land areas of the planet is common in the former Soviet countries, including Russia. In US schools, as a rule, they teach that there are seven continents: Europe, North America and South America. In many parts of Europe, students are taught that there are only six continents, combining North and South America into one continent.

Why such difference? WITH geological point view, Europe and Asia one big mainland. The split into two separate parts is happening more from a geopolitical point of view, since Russia occupies a vast area of ​​Asia and has historically and politically been isolated from the forces Western Europe such as UK, Germany and France.

IN Lately some geologists began to argue that a "new" continent called Zeeland should be added to the list. According to one theory, this land is located at east coast Australia. New Zealand and a few small islands are the only peaks above the water; the remaining 94 percent of the continent is hidden under the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

Other ways of dividing land: regions, parts of the world and tectonic plates

Geographers, to simplify their work, usually delimit the lands of the planet into regions, and not continents or parts of the world. The official list of countries by region divides the world into eight regions: Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, North America, Central America and caribbean, South America, Africa, Australia and Oceania.

There is also a similar concept of "part of the world", according to which all continents are divided into six main parts of the world: Asia, Africa, America, Europe, Australia and Oceania, Antarctica. As we can see from this list, Eurasia is divided into two parts (Europe and Asia), while North and South America are merged into one (America).

You can also divide major landmasses into tectonic plates, which are large slabs of hard rock. These plates are composed of continental and oceanic crusts and are separated from each other by fault lines. There are 15 tectonic plates in total, seven of which are approximately 16 million square kilometers or more in size. Not surprisingly, they roughly correspond to the shape of the continents that lie on their surface.

Today, answering the question about the number of parts of the world, we automatically answer: six. Yes, more than one lesson is devoted to this in geography lessons at school.
Currently, 6 parts of the world are traditionally distinguished:
- Europe;
- Asia;
- Africa;
- North America;
- South America;
- Australia and Oceania;
- Antarctica.

IN last years some scientists propose to single out Oceania as a separate part of the world. If this is officially approved, then there will be 7 parts of the world on Earth.
But if you ask a question about the time when people began to divide the land known to them into parts of the world, then few will answer this question. The maximum that can be heard in response: "It happened historically." And from this follows the conclusion that the answers to the question of the time of the division of land into parts must be sought in history.
Turning to historical chronicles, in search of an answer to the question "How many parts of the world are on Earth, and when did they begin to be divided?" you can find out the following:
1. The ancient Greeks were the first to divide the land into parts of the world. They divided the land known to them along cultural and political lines. At the same time, they considered Greece itself the center of the world.
2. In VI BC. ancient Greek philosophers divided the part of the Earth known to them into two parts. That land that lay to the west, they called Europe, that is, the land of Sunset. The land east of Hellas was given the name Asia, which means “east” in Assyrian. The use of the Assyrian name was due to the fact that to the east Ancient Greece the ancient state of Assyria was located and Assyrian words were popular among the ancient Greeks, and then among the Romans.
3. A century later, in the 5th century BC, Herodotus, the father of history, singles out Libya and Ethiopia lying behind it as a separate part of the land. The Romans called this land Africa when they went to conquer Carthage. The name comes from the name of the Afarik tribe who lived in those places. But there is a second version of the origin of the word "Africa" ​​- Arabic. The Arabic word "Ifriqiya" is translated as "Separated".

The ideas of the Greeks about the division of the world known to them into parts of the world were fixed in writing by Claudius Ptolemy in his work on geography, supplementing the already existing parts of the world: Europe, Asia and Africa - still "Terra incognita" - with unknown lands.
At this, the process of dividing land into parts of the world temporarily stopped. The ancient era with its desire to know the world was replaced by the era early medieval, which fully deserves the title of the Dark Ages. During this historical period, people were not up to the question “How many parts of the world are there on Earth?”.
But everything ends sometime, and the period of decline was replaced by the Renaissance. People again began to strive to gain new knowledge and explore the world.
Christopher Columbus, in search of a route to India, sailed from the Spanish port of Palos de la Fontera in 1492. This voyage ended with the discovery of a new continent for Europeans and, named after Amerigo Vespucci, who predicted its existence.
to the North and South America began to be divided at the end of the 19th century after the construction of the Panama Canal, which divided the American mainland into two parts.
Dutch navigators in the 17th century discovered Australia - "Terra Australis Incognita". So there was a fifth part of the world - Australia and Oceania.
The last, sixth continent - Antarctica, was discovered by the expedition of Russian navigators Thaddeus Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev in 1820. The discovery of Antarctica was completed by the beginning of the 20th century, when it got its name, meaning "Opposite to the Arctic."
The process of dividing land into parts of the world began in ancient era, and finished almost today. But now the question of the time of the beginning of the division of land into parts of the world can be answered quite specifically.