Continents, countries and regions

Here is a world map. The blue is water, and the white is land. If you were to divide the land areas of the earth into smaller parts, how would you do it? Well, the simplest way is to follow the boundaries created by the oceans. And we get six vast land areas.

These are the six continents of the world: North America, South America, Eurasia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica. But what about these small islands in the Pacific ocean? Do they belong to a continent? Does New Zealand? Well, they don’t belong to a geographic continent, but sometimes they are grouped together with Australia, and together they are called Oceania.

And we say that Oceania is a World Region. The other regions of world are North America, South America, Africa, and Antarctica. And then we separate Europe from Asia, and say they are separate regions. So, in all there are seven world regions and six geographic continents. One of these continents is Australia, and this is also the name of a country that extends across this continent.

This country has a population, clearly defined borders, a common political system, and a government ruling the country. So, Australia is also a state: a state that occupies a whole geographic continent. But most continents consist of several states. These can be large and heavily populated, like Russia and China, or small and sparsely populated, like the small mountainous country of Nepal. On one continent, Antarctica, there are no states at all.

Following an international agreement, Antarctica must not belong to any state, and it can only be used for peaceful purposes, like scientific research. The borders between states often follow the barriers created by nature. The border between France and Spain follows the mountain range of the Pyrenees. And a large part of the border between USA and Mexico follows the river Rio Grande. On the North side of the river is the USA, on the south side Mexico.

Cuba, which consists of islands, is a state bordered by the water surrounding the islands. Natural land formations often have irregular shapes, so many borders between states are just as irregular. But there are also state borders going straight over a continent. Like here. A large part of the border between Canada and the USA is placed along the 49th parallel, regardless of what rivers, lakes and mountains are in the way.

Many of the borders in Africa, were drawn with a ruler on a map, during a conference in Berlin in 1885. European state powers divided the continent of Africa between them, with no regard to the societies, groups of people, and languages that were already there. This caused some nations, here meaning groups of people with a common language and a common culture, to be split up across several separate states. There are many examples of nations who have been subject to this. One of them is the Kurds, who do not have their own state.

Their country Kurdistan instead is spread out over the states of Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq. And that’s not all. There are states which stretch over several regions. And land areas belonging to one geographical continent, but another world region. And states that geographically belong to one continent, but culturally is closer to other groups of countries.

So, it’s not all that easy to keep track of the earth’s Regions Continents States And countries.