A continent is a large continuous mass of land conventionally regarded as a collective region. There are seven continents: Asia , Africa , North America , South America , Antarctica , Europe , and Australia (listed from largest to smallest in size). Sometimes Europe and Asia are considered one continent called Eurasia. Continents loosely correlate with the positions of tectonic plates .

Geologists theorize that continents move. This theory is called plate tectonics , which holds that the lithosphere , the outermost layer of Earth (where continents are), lies on top of a semifluid layer of partially molten magma called the asthenosphere . Convection from the decay of radioactive elements in the mantle causes continental and oceanic plates to move.

continent

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Q: What is the largest continent?

Asia is the largest continent on Earth by size. It is approximately 44,614,000 square kilometres (17,226,200 square miles).

Q: What is the Pangea supercontinent?

Pangea is a landmass of the Early Permian to Early Jurassic Periods that incorporated almost all modern landmasses and is thus considered a supercontinent. Overwhelming evidence for Pangea includes similar fossil and geological records across different continents and the matching “jigsaw” shapes of today’s continents, most notably the eastern South American and western African coastlines.

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Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Nov 18, 2024 • Article History

Key People:: J. Tuzo Wilson; Andreas Franz Wilhelm Schimper

Related Topics:: Australia; Asia; Africa; North America; South America

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What is a continent?

What is the largest continent?

Do continents move?

What is the Pangea supercontinent?

continent, one of the larger continuous masses of land, namely, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia, listed in order of size. (Europe and Asia are sometimes considered a single continent, Eurasia.) There is great variation in the sizes of continents; Asia is more than five times as large as Australia. The largest island in the world, Greenland, is only about one-fourth the size of Australia. The continents differ sharply in their degree of compactness. Africa has the most regular coastline and, consequently, the lowest ratio of coastline to total area. Europe is the most irregular and ...(100 of 468 words)

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