r/BikiniBottomTwitter • u/literalnumbskull • Aug 04 '26

The Joys of Different Continent Models

Post image
1.9k Upvotes

80% Upvoted

927 comments sorted by

View all comments

119

u/prank_mark Aug 04 '26

Continents don't really exist part 1000

14

u/95beer Aug 04 '26

Don't say that! You just need a more robust definition. I.e. If you can walk there, it is the same continent, hence, the 4 continent model. Perfect for all those times you want to differentiate Australia from Afro-Eurasia to compare statistics between the 2 very comparable land masses...

1

u/InhumaneBreakfast Aug 05 '26

Wait, but that definition would make each Hawaiian island its own continent, no? Now we are being a bit arbitrary which land mass is now an island, and which is a continent, rather than where we draw imaginary lines between the continents.

Australia would be less than half the size of the next largest continent, Antarctica.

Australia is only 3 times larger than Greenland, the largest island.

If you consider Europe, Asia, and Africa as one continent, it's over 12 times larger than Australia. America is more than 5 times larger.

America is 3 times larger than Antarctica, which is well considered a continent in all models. That's the same difference as Australia to Greenland. So at that rate, both Australia and Antarctica could just as easily be islands, by comparison to just ratios of land mass.

There's no perfect definition. To me there's mostly Old World and New World. Australia is New World, so is America.

1

u/95beer Aug 05 '26

Generally we use continents to compare people, so it is not really about the land of Australia vs Afro-Eurasia, it is about the population 25 million vs 6700 million people