Maps

• National Geographic MapMaker: Continents

Whengeographers identify acontinent, they usually include all the islands associated with it. Japan, for instance, is part of the continent of Asia. Likewise, Greenland and all the islands in the Caribbean Sea are usually considered part of North America.

Together, the continents add up to about 148 million square kilometers (57 million square miles) of land. Continents make up most—but not all—of Earth’s land surface. A very small portion of the total land area is made of islands that are not considered physical parts of continents. Theocean covers almost three-fourths of Earth. The area of the ocean is more than double the area of all the continents combined. All continents border at least one ocean. Asia, the largest continent, has the longest series ofcoastlines.

Coastlines, however, do notindicate the actual boundaries of the continents. Continents are defined by their continental shelves. Acontinental shelf is a gently sloping area that extends outward from thebeach far into the ocean. A continental shelf is part of the ocean, but also part of the continent.

To human geographers, continents are also culturallydistinct. The continents of Europe and Asia, for example, are actually part of a single,enormous piece of land calledEurasia. But historically, the areas of Asia and Europe have been separated because of people’s perceptions about their differentcultures. Because of this, most geographers continue to divide Eurasia into Europe and Asia. An imaginary line, running from the northern Ural Mountains in Russia south to the Caspian and Black Seas, separates Europe, to the west, from Asia, to the east.

Building the Continents

Earth formed 4.6 billion years ago from a great, swirling cloud of cosmicdust and gas. The continuous smashing of spacedebris and the pull ofgravity made the inside of Earth heat up. As the heat increased, some of Earth’s rocky materials melted and rose to the surface, where they cooled and formed acrust. Heavier material sank toward Earth’s center. Eventually, Earth came to have three main layers: thecore, themantle and the crust.

The crust and the top portion of the mantle form arigid shell around Earth that is broken into huge sections called tectonic plates. The heat from inside Earth causes the plates to slide around on themolten mantle. Today, tectonic plates continue to slowly slide around the surface, just as they have for hundreds of millions of years.Geologists believe the interaction of the plates, a process called plate tectonics, contributed to the creation of continents.

Studies of rocks found inancient areas of North America have revealed that the oldest known pieces of the continents began to form nearly 4 billion years ago, soon after Earth formed. At that time, aprimitive ocean covered Earth. Only a small fraction of the crust was made of continental material. Scientiststheorize that this material built up along the boundaries of tectonic plates during a process calledsubduction. During subduction, plates collide and the edge of one plate slides beneath the edge of another.

When heavyoceanic crust subducted toward the mantle, it melted in the mantle’s intense heat. Once it melted, the rock became lighter. Now in the form ofmagma, it rose through the overlying plate and burst out aslava. When the lava cooled, it hardened intoigneous rock.

Gradually, the igneous rock built up into smallvolcanic islands above the surface of the ocean. Over time, these islands grew bigger, partly as the result of more lava flows and partly from the buildup of material scraped off descending plates. When plates carrying islands subducted, the islands themselves did notdescend into the mantle. Their materialfused with that of islands on the neighboring plate. This made even larger landmasses in the form of the first continents.

The building of volcanic islands and continental material through plate tectonics is a process that continues today.Continental crust is much lighter than oceanic crust. In subduction zones, where tectonic plates interact with each other, oceanic crust always subducts beneath continental crust. Oceanic crust is constantly being recycled in the mantle. For this reason, continental crust is much, much older than oceanic crust.

Wandering Continents

If you could visit Earth as it was millions of years ago, it would look very different. The continents have not always been where they are today. About 480 million years ago, most continents were scattered chunks of land lying along or below theEquator. Millions of years of continuous tectonic activity changed their positions, and by 240 million years ago, almost all of the world’s land was joined in a single, huge continent.

By about 200 million years ago, the forces that helped form thesupercontinent caused it to begin to break apart. The pieces of the supercontinent that began to move apart were the beginnings of the continents that we know today.

A giant landmass that would become Europe, Asia, and North America separated from another mass that would split up into other continents. In time, Antarctica and Australia, still joined together, broke away and drifted south. The small piece of land that would become thepeninsula of India broke away and for millions of years moved north as a large island. It eventually collided with Asia. Gradually, the different landmasses moved to their present locations.

The positions of the continents are always changing. North America and Europe are moving away from each other at the rate of about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) per year. If you could visit the planet in the future, you might find that part of the U.S. state of California had separated from North America and become an island. Africa might have split in two along the Great Rift Valley. It is even possible that another supercontinent may form someday.

Continental Features

The surface of the continents has changed many times because ofmountain building,weathering,erosion and buildup ofsediment. Continuous, slow movement of tectonic plates also changes surface features.

The rocks that form the continents have been shaped and reshaped many times. Great mountain ranges have risen and then have been worn away. Ocean waters haveflooded huge areas and then gradually dried up. Massiveice sheets have come and gone, sculpting thelandscape in the process.

Today, all continents have greatmountain ranges,vastplains,extensiveplateaus, andcomplexriver systems. The landmasses’ averageelevation above sea level is about 838 meters (2,750 feet).

Although each is unique, all the continents share two basic features: old,geologicallystable regions, and younger, somewhat more active regions. In the younger regions, the process of mountain building has happened recently and often continues to happen.

The power for mountain building, ororogeny, comes from plate tectonics. One way mountains form is through the collision of two tectonic plates. The impact creates wrinkles in the crust, just as a rug wrinkles when you push against one end of it. Such a collision created Asia’s Himalaya mountain range several million years ago. The plate carrying India slowly and forcefully shoved the landmass of India into Asia, which was riding on another plate. The collision continues today, causing the Himalayas to continually grow taller.

Recently formed mountains, calledcoastal ranges, rise near the western coasts of North and South America. Older, more stable mountain ranges are found in the interior of continents. The Appalachians of North America and the Urals, on the border between Europe and Asia, are older mountain ranges that are not geologically active.

Even older than these ancient, eroded mountain ranges are flatter, more stable areas of the continents calledcratons. A craton is an area of ancient crust that formed during the Earth’s early history. Every continent has a craton.Microcontinents, like New Zealand, lack cratons.

Cratons have two forms:shields andplatforms. Shields are bare rocks that may be the roots or cores of ancient mountain ranges that have completely eroded away. Platforms are cratons with sediment and sedimentary rock lying on top.

The Canadian Shield makes up about a quarter of North America. For hundreds of thousands of years, sheets of ice up to 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) thick coated the Canadian Shield. The moving ice wore away material on top of ancient rock layers, exposing some of the oldest formations on Earth. When you stand on the oldest part of the Canadian Shield, you stand directly on rocks that formed more than 3.5 billion years ago.

North America

North America, the third-largest continent, extends from the tiny Aleutian Islands in the northwest to theIsthmus of Panama in the south. The continent includes the enormous island of Greenland (an autonomous territory of Denmark) in the northeast. In the far north, the continent stretches halfway around the world, from Greenland to the Aleutians. But at Panama’s narrowest part, the continent is just 50 kilometers (31 miles) across.

Young mountains—including the Rockies, North America’s largest chain—rise in the West. Some of Earth’s youngest mountains are found in the Cascade Range of the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon and California. Some peaks there began to form only about a million years ago—a wink of an eye in Earth’s long history. North America’s older mountain ranges rise near the East Coast of the United States and Canada.

In between the mountain systems lie wide plains that contain deep, richsoil. Much of the soil was formed from material deposited during the most recentglacial period. Thisice age reached its peak about 18,000 years ago. Asglaciers retreated, streams of melted ice dropped sediment on the land, building layers offertile soil in the plains region.Grain grown in this region, called the “breadbasket of North America,” feeds a large part of the world.

North America contains a variety of natural wonders.Landforms and all types ofvegetation can be found within its boundaries. North America has deepcanyons, such as Copper Canyon in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Yellowstone National Park, in the U.S. state of Wyoming, has some of the world’s most activegeysers. Canada’sBay of Fundy has the greatest variation oftide levels in the world. TheGreat Lakes form the planet’s largest area offresh water. In the U.S. state of California,giant sequoias—the largest tree species in the world—grow more than 76 meters (250 feet) tall and nearly 31 meters (100 feet) around.

Greenland, off the east coast of Canada, is the world’s largest island. Despite its name, Greenland is mostly covered with ice. Its ice is aremnant of the great ice sheets that onceblanketed much of the North American continent. Greenland is the only place besides Antarctica that still has an ice sheet.

From the freezing Arctic to thetropicaljungles ofCentral America, North America has moreclimate variation than any other continent. Almost every type ofecosystem is represented somewhere on the continent, fromcoral reefs in the Caribbean to Greenland’s ice sheet to the Great Plains in the United States and Canada. North America has two overarching types of ecology, both of which support a wide variety of flora and fauna. One is the Nearctic region, which spans Canada, most of the United States and northern Mexico. Animals native to this region include bison (Bison bison), moose (Alces alces) and the California condor (Gymnogyps californianus). The other is the Neotropical region, which covers southern Mexico and extends south. Animals native to this region include llamas (Lama glama), tapirs and vipers.

Today, North America is made of Canada, the United States, Greenland, Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and the island countries and territories that dot the Caribbean Sea and the western North Atlantic. People have migrated to North America for thousands of years and continue to immigrate to North America today. Since the United States became a country in 1783, more than 86 million people have immigrated to the country, adding to theIndigenous people,colonizers and formerly enslaved people (mostly Africans) already in the country. Despite their lives, cultures and customs being threatened or destroyed by European colonizers, more than 500 Indigenous nations continue to live in North America, including the Inuit of Arctic Canada and Alaska, the Iroquois of the United States and the Nahua of Mexico. 

Most of North America sits on the North American Plate. Parts of the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington, Oregon, and California sit on the tiny Juan de Fuca Plate. Parts of California and the Mexican state of Baja California sit on the enormous Pacific Plate. Parts of Baja California and the Mexican states of Baja California Sur, Sonora, Sinaloa, and Jalisco sit on the Cocos Plate. The Caribbean Plate carries most of the small islands of the Caribbean Sea (south of the island of Cuba) as well as Central America from Honduras to Panama. The Hawaiian Islands, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on the Pacific Plate, are usually considered part of North America.

South America

South America is connected to North America by the narrow Isthmus of Panama. These two continents were no’t always connected; they came together only 3 million years ago. South America is the fourth-largest continent and extends from the sunny beaches of the Caribbean Sea to thefrigid waters near theAntarctic Circle.

South America’s southernmost islands, calledTierra del Fuego, are less than 1,120 kilometers (700 miles) from Antarctica. These islands even host some Antarctic birds, such as penguins, albatrosses and terns. Though its name comes from Spanish colonizers, the islands were home to many Indigenous groups, including the Yaghan. During colonization, many Yaghan died from European diseases and colonial violence, but there remains a sizable population on the islands, which now belong to Argentina and Chile.

The Andes, Earth’s longestterrestrial mountain range, stretch the entire length of South America. Many activevolcanoes dot the range. These volcanic areas are fueled by heat generated as a large oceanic plate, called the Nazca Plate, grinds beneath the plate carrying South America.

The central-southern area of South America haspampas, or plains. These rich areas are ideal foragriculture. Growingwheat is a majorindustry in the pampas.Grazing animals, such ascattle and sheep, are also raised in the pampas region.

In northern South America, the Amazon River and its tributaries flow through the world’s largest tropicalrainforest. In volume, the Amazon is the largest river in the world. More water flows from it than from the next six largest rivers combined.

South America is also home to the world’s tallestwaterfall, Angel Falls, in the country of Venezuela. Water flows more than 979 meters (3,212 feet)—almost a mile. The falls are so high that most of the waterevaporates intomist or is blown away by wind before it reaches the ground.

South American rainforests contain an enormous wealth of animal and plant life. More than 15,000 species of plants and animals are found only in the AmazonBasin, including the Amazon River dolphin (Inia geoffrensis) and the blue-throated macaw (Ara glaucogularis). Many Amazonian plant species are sources of food andmedicine for the rest of the world. Scientists are trying to find ways to preserve thisprecious andfragile environment as people move into the Amazon Basin and clear land for settlements and agriculture.

Twelve independent countries make up South America: Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Guyana, and Suriname. The territories of French Guiana, once colonized by and now an incorporated part of France, and the Falkland Islands, part of the United Kingdom, are also part of South America. The colonization of South America by Spain and Portugal destroyed many Indigenous cultures, but others, such as the Guarani in Brazil, have successfully fought against their oppressors to maintain their ways of life.

Almost all of South America sits on top of the South American Plate.

Europe

Europe, the sixth-largest continent, contains just 7% of the world’s land. In total area, the continent of Europe is only slightly larger than the country of Canada. However, the population of Europe is more than twice that of South America. Europe has more than 40 countries and many well-known cities, including London, England; Paris, France; Berlin, Germany; Rome, Italy; Madrid, Spain; and Moscow, Russia.

Most European countries have access to the ocean. The continent is bordered by the Arctic Ocean in the north, the Atlantic Ocean in the west, the Caspian Sea in the southeast, and the Mediterranean and Black Seas in the south. The nearness of these bodies of water and thenavigation of many of Europe’s rivers played a major role in the continent’s history. Early Europeans learned the river systems of the Volga, Danube, Don, Rhine and Po, and could successfully travel the length and width of the small continent fortrade,communication orconquest.

Navigation and colonization outside of Europe was an important part of thedevelopment of the continent’seconomic, social,linguistic and politicallegacy. Europeans colonized land on every continent except Antarctica, leading to huge, and often catastrophic, changes for the Indigenous people. European countriesextracted natural resources from the countries they colonized, leading to increased wealth for the colonizers at the expense of the people in their colonies, who continue to facewealth disparities and politicalinstability to this day.

In the east, the Ural Mountains separate Europe from Asia. The nations of Russia and Kazakhstanstraddle both continents. Another range, the Kjølen Mountains, extends along the northern part of the border between Sweden and Norway. To the south, the Alps form anarc stretching from Albania to Austria, then across Switzerland and northern Italy into France. As the youngest and steepest of Europe’s mountains, the Alps geologically resemble the Rockies of North America, another young range.

A large area of gently rolling plains extends from northern France eastward to the Urals. A climate of warm summers, cold winters and plentiful rain helps make much of this Europeanfarmland very productive.

Human development in Europe led to theextinction or near extinction of many wild animals indigenous to the continent. Some indigenous animals that have survived include the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), the Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) and Mediterranean tortoises (Testudo graeca).

Almost all of Europe sits on the massive Eurasian Plate.

Africa

Africa, the second-largest continent, covers an area more than three times that of the United States. From north to south, Africa stretches about 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles). It is connected to Asia by the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt.

The Sahara, which covers much of North Africa, is the world’s largest hotdesert. The world’s longest river, the Nile, flows more than 6,560 kilometers (4,100 miles) from its mostremoteheadwaters in Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea in the north. A series of falls andrapids along the southern part of the river makes navigation difficult. The Nile has played an important role in the history of Africa. In ancient Egyptiancivilization, it was a source of life forfood, water, and transportation.

The top half of Africa is mostly dry, hot desert. The middle area hassavannas, or flat, grassy plains. Thisregion is home to wild animals such as lions (Panthera leo), giraffes, elephants, hyenas, cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) and wildebeests. The central and southern areas of Africa aredominated by rainforests. Many of these forests thrive around Africa’s other great rivers, the Zambezi, the Congo and the Niger. These rivers were also home to Great Zimbabwe, the Kingdom of Kongo and the Ghana Empire, respectively. However, trees from the rainforests fed by these rivers are being cut down for many of the same reasonsdeforestation is taking place in the rainforests of South America and Asia: development for businesses, homes and agriculture.

Much of Africa is a high plateau surrounded by narrow strips of coastal lowlands. Hilly uplands and mountains rise in some areas of the interior. Glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania sit just miles from the tropical jungles below. Even though Kilimanjaro is not far from the Equator,snow covers itssummit all year long.

In eastern Africa, a giant depression called the Great Rift Valley runs from the Red Sea to the country of Mozambique. (Therift valley actually starts in southwestern Asia.) The Great Rift Valley is a site of major tectonic activity, where the continent of Africa is splitting into two. Geologists have already named the two parts of the African Plate. TheNubian Plate carries most of the continent to the west of the rift, while theSomali Plate carries the far eastern part of the continent, including the so-called “Horn of Africa.” The Horn of Africa is a peninsula that resembles the upturned horn of a rhinoceros. The countries of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia sit on the Horn of Africa and the Somali Plate.

Africa is home to 56 countries but only 18.3% of the world’s total population. The area of central-eastern Africa is important to scientists who studyevolution and the earliest origins of humanity. This area is thought to be the place wherehominins began to evolve. During the era of colonization, more than 12.5 million Africans were kidnapped from Africa and enslaved as part of the transatlantic slave trade. Later, nearly all of Africa was colonized by Europe, until the beginning in the mid-20th century when African leaders began to break free. Today, many indigenous groups in Africa continue to fight for their autonomy. The Maasai in Tanzania, for example, who raise cattle as part of their traditional culture, are fighting for land that is being taken away to use for other agricultural purposes or game reserves.

The entire continent of Africa sits on the African Plate.

Asia

Asia, the largest continent, stretches from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the western Pacific Ocean. There are more than 40 countries in Asia. Some are among the most-populated countries in the world, including China, India and Indonesia. About 60 percent of Earth’s population lives in Asia. More than a third of the world’s people live in China and India alone. Asia has the world’s highest population of Indigenous people of any continent, but some, like the Hmong of Southeast Asia, have facedsystemicpersecution.Asia includes many islands, some of them countries. The Philippines, Indonesia, Japan and Taiwan are major island nations in Asia.

Most of Asia’s people live in cities or fertile farming areas near rivervalleys, plains and coasts. The plateaus in Central Asia are largely unsuitable for farming and are thinly populated.

Asia has some of the world’s most desired natural resources, which European countries sought to exploit through colonization. Through the years, European colonizers have gained wealth through the control of spices, opium, rubber and oil. Today, foreign powers compete for political influence and access to natural resources, such as rare earth materials, lithium, timber, oil and natural gas.

Asia accounts for almost a third of the world’s land. The continent has a wide range of climate regions, frompolar in the Siberian Arctic to tropical in equatorial Indonesia. Parts of Central Asia, including the Gobi Desert in China and Mongolia, are dry year-round. Southeast Asia, on the other hand, depends on the annualmonsoons, which bring rain and make agriculture possible. Asia’s climate and topography vary greatly, providing ecosystems for a wide variety of animals, including King cobras, Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) and Oriental scops owls (Otus sunia).Monsoon rains andsnowmelt feed Asian rivers, such as the Ganges, the Yellow, the Mekong, the Indus and the Yangtze. The rich valley between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in western Asia is called the “Fertile Crescent” for its place in the development of agriculture and human civilization.Asia is the most mountainous of all the continents. More than 50 of the highest peaks in the world are in Asia. Mount Everest, which reaches more than 8,700 meters (29,000 feet) high in the Himalayan range, is the highest point on Earth. These mountains have become major destination spots for adventurous travelers.Plate tectonics continuously push the mountains higher. As the landmass of India pushes northward into the landmass of Eurasia, parts of the Himalayas rise at a rate of about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) every five years. Asia contains not only Earth’s highest elevation, but also its lowest place on land: the shores of the Dead Sea in Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian West Bank (under Israeli control). The land there lies more than 390 meters (1,300 feet) belowsea level.

Although the Eurasian Plate carries most of Asia, it is not the only one supporting major parts of the large continent. The Arabian Peninsula, in the continent’s southwest, is carried by the Arabian Plate. The Indian Plate supports the Indian peninsula, sometimes called theSouth Asian subcontinent. The Australian Plate carries some islands in Indonesia. The North American Plate carries easternSiberia and the northern islands of Japan.

Australia

In addition to being the smallest continent, Australia is the flattest and the second-driest, after Antarctica. The continent is sometimes calledOceania, to include the thousands of tiny islands of the Central and South Pacific, most notably Melanesia, Micronesia andPolynesia (including the U.S. state of Hawai‘i). However, the continent of Australia itself includes only the nation of Australia, the eastern portion of the island of New Guinea (part of the nation of Papua New Guinea) and the island nation of New Zealand.Australia covers just fewer than 8.5 million square kilometers (about 3.5 million square miles). Its population is about 31 million. It is the mostsparsely populated continent, after Antarctica.A plateau in the middle of mainland Australia makes up most of the continent’s total area. Rainfall is light on the plateau, and not many people have settled there. The Great Dividing Range, a long mountain range, rises near the east coast and extends from the northern part of the territory of Queensland through the territories of New South Wales and Victoria. Mainland Australia is known for theOutback, a desert area in the interior. This area is so dry, hot, andbarren that few people live there.In addition to the hot plateaus and deserts in mainland Australia, the continent also features lush equatorial rain forests on the island of New Guinea, tropical beaches, and high mountain peaks and glaciers in New Zealand. Most of Australia’s people live in cities along the southern and eastern coasts of the mainland. Major cities include Perth, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide, all in Australia. The country of Australia has two main Indigenous groups: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. European colonization of Australia threatened and harmed the culture and health of both Indigenous groups, but they were able to resist and protect their way of life, which they continue to do to this day.

Biologists who study animals consider Australia a livinglaboratory. When the continent began to break away from Antarctica more than 60 million years ago, it carried acargo of animals with it.Isolated from life on other continents, the animals developed into creaturesunique to Australia, such as the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus), the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) and the Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii).The Great Barrier Reef, off mainland Australia’s northeast coast, is another living laboratory. The world’s largest coral reef ecosystem, it is home to thousands of species of fish, sponges, marine mammals,corals, andcrustaceans. The reef itself is 1,920 kilometers (1,200 miles) of living coral communities. By some estimates, it is the world’s largest living organism.Most of Australia sits on the Australian Plate. The southern part of the South Island of New Zealand sits on the Pacific Plate.

Antarctica

Antarctica is the windiest, driest and iciest place on Earth. Antarctica is larger than Europe or Australia, but unlike those continents, it has nopermanent human population. People who live and work there are scientific researchers and support staff, such as pilots and cooks. The large animals that live in Antarctica, such as penguins, albatrosses and seals, generally rely on the sea to survive. The climate of Antarctica makes it impossible to support agriculture or a permanent civilization. Temperatures in Antarctica, much lower than Arctic temperatures, plunge lower than -73 degrees Celsius (-100 degrees Fahrenheit).Scientific bases and laboratories have been established in Antarctica for studies in fields likegeology, oceanography andmeteorology. The freezing temperatures of Antarctica make it an excellent place to study the history of Earth’satmosphere and climate.Ice cores from the massive Antarctic ice sheet have recorded changes in Earth’s temperature and atmosphericgases for thousands of years. Antarctica is also an ideal place for discoveringmeteorites, or stony objects that have impacted Earth from outer space. The dark meteorites, often made ofmetals likeiron, stand out from the white landscape of most of the continent.Antarctica is almost completely covered with ice, sometimes as thick as 3.2 kilometers (2 miles). In winter, Antarctica’s surface area may double aspack ice builds up in the ocean around the continent. Like all other continents, Antarctica has volcanic activity. The most active volcano is Mount Erebus, which is less than 1,392 kilometers (870 miles) from the South Pole. Evidence of itsfrequent eruptions can be found in the hot, molten rock beneath the continent’s icy surface.Antarctica does not have any countries. However, scientific groups from different countries inhabit theresearch stations. A multinational treaty negotiated in 1959 and reviewed in 1991 states thatresearch in Antarctica can only be used for peaceful purposes. McMurdo Station, the largest community in Antarctica, is operated by the United States. Vostok Station, where the coldest temperature on Earth was recorded, is operated by Russia. All of Antarctica sits on the Antarctic Plate.