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A speculative representation of Antarctica labelled as ' Terra Australis Incognita ' on Jan Janssonius's Zeekaart van het Zuidpoolgebied (1657), Het Scheepvaartmuseum The name given to the continent originates from the word antarctic, which comes from Middle French antartique or antarctique ('opposite to the Arctic') and, in turn, the Latin antarcticus ('opposite to the north').
In contemporary English, North and South America are generally considered separate continents, and taken together are called the Americas in the plural. When conceived as a unitary continent, the form is generally the continent of America in the singular.
The German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller created the earliest known map showing the name America, which he applied to the South American continent only. 1594 world map by Petrus Plancius. The 1594 map by Petrus Plancius labels the two landmasses "America Mexicana" and "America Peruana", two terms still used in the 17th century. [1]
Antarctica Map of island countries: these states are not located on any continent-sized landmass, but they are usually grouped geographically with a neighbouring continent. Determining the boundaries between the continents is generally a matter of geographical convention. Several slightly different conventions are in use.
The Western Hemisphere consists of the Americas, excluding some of the Aleutian Islands to the southwest of the Alaskan mainland; the westernmost portions of Europe and Africa, both mainland and islands; the extreme eastern tip of the Russian mainland and islands (); numerous territories in Oceania; and a large portion of Antarctica.
The history of Antarctica emerges from early Western theories of a vast continent, known as Terra Australis, believed to exist in the far south of the globe. The term Antarctic , referring to the opposite of the Arctic Circle , was coined by Marinus of Tyre in the 2nd century AD.
Depending on what story you believe, America's most famous shopping day is either named after a financial crisis, a concerned police force or, according to some theories, 19th-century slave owners ...
Combined with the consolidation of the Americas, this would produce a four-continent model consisting of Afro-Eurasia, America, Antarctica, and Australia. When sea levels were lower during the Pleistocene ice ages , greater areas of the continental shelf were exposed as dry land, forming land bridges between Tasmania and the Australian mainland ...