this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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So every continent map is wrong?
Yes. Continent is a dubious cultural term, not geographical. See map men's genial video on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrsxRJdwfM0
Or CPG Grey's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uBcq1x7P34
Well, yeah. The definition of "continent" is arbitrary.
I could argue that there are only four, for instance (America, Afro-Eurasia, Antarctica, and Australia).
and i would argue there are way more, because grouping all of africa and europe and asia together is kind of utterly pointless.
What makes sense to me is groupings very much like europe in size and cultural cohesion, something roughly like this:
(I can't intuitively figure out where to draw lines in america, aside from the fact that the northern part of the landmass is basically unpopulated and vastly more similar to greenland than it is to the populated parts)
And then at that rate, Greenland could be counted, or Australia and Antarctica left out.
Well yes, it is entirely arbitrary. One of the most agreed-upon factors is that "at least as big as Australia" is a requirement, but there's no hard reason for that requirement
Personally I think we should consider particarly big mountain ranges and deserts as continental boundaries more often, like we do with the Urals in nodels that separate Asia and Europe. "Asia" is such a huge concept as to be almost useless, and it's not like China and Arabia had much influence on each other historically
You do have "regions" already kind of filling that niche. MENA, Europe, Central Asia, East Asia and so on.
We just need better branding for them! Middle East and North Africa doesn’t roll off the tongue nearly as well as just Africa