On Thu, 9 Sep 2004 06:14:48 -0700, Poor, Edmund W <edmund.w.poor(a)abc.com> wrote:
There are seven traditional continents in geography.
In no particular
order, they are:
...
* Australia (the "island continent")
...
This leaves two issues:
1. Where do the various islands go?
I think, generally, they go with the nearest continent, with special
treatment given to Australia and its surroundings: since there isn't
really a 'continent' nearby (in pedantic terms), but Australia is the
largest land mass, the term "Australasia"
[
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australasia] is sometimes used to group
these as a "continent". In other contexts, "Oceania" is used,
although
according to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceania these two terms are
sometimes more or less the complement of each other, one including
only Australia and New Zealand, while the other includes the lesser
islands between there and Asia.
In other words, Australia isn't generally treated as a continent, but
part of an imaginary continent that mops up the islands that aren't
near enough a real continent to belong. I think everything else is
just about near enough to 'belong', although how 'American' some of
the more distant mid-oceanic islands would consider themselves, I'm
not sure!
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]