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© Copyright 1998, Jim Loy
Back when I was in grade school, we learned the continents in this order:
Why that order? At first, I assumed that it was in order of size (with Asia being the largest continent). This list is almost in order of size, except for Antarctica, which is larger than Europe or Australia. I suppose it is last because it is mostly uninhabited. The seals and penguins don't object to being listed last. By the way, I hope you pronounce the first "c" in Antarctica (ant-ARK-ti-ca).
What is a continent? Well, it is a sort of super island. My dictionary says that a continent is "one of the seven main landmasses of the globe." That is definition by example (perfectly legal), "a continent is one of these," and then list the seven examples.
A look at the globe shows that the definition is fairly arbitrary. Asia and Europe are not separated by water, they look like one huge continent (Eurasia, as it is often called). Well, for many purposes (cultural, linguistic, historical...) they are separate continents. But that is arbitrary. North America and South America are connected, too, but only by a little strip of land at Panama. Australia is called the "Island Continent". It is small for a continent, and huge for an island.
What about Greenland? On some maps, it looks huge, bigger than Europe. Well Greenland is much smaller than Australia. It is just that maps are distorted, near the edges. The map makers (cartographers) have to fit a spherical globe onto a flat map. There must be distortions of some kind. So, Greenland, Alaska, Siberia, and Antarctica often get stretched to an extra-large size. Greenland is just an island, although it is the largest island.
Antarctica is mostly ice. A lot of the land, under the ice, is below sea level. If the ice weren't there, then that land would be under water. But, then again, if we removed the ice, the land would raise somewhat, as it is being held down by the weight of the ice. So, it is a little hard to say just what Antarctica's area is. Again, it is arbitrary.
Anyway, I list the continents in this order: