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Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically , physiogeographically , philologically , and ecologically , where the term ...
The continent of Australia, sometimes known in technical contexts by the names Sahul (/ s ə ˈ h uː l /), Australia-New Guinea, Australinea, or Meganesia to distinguish it from the country of Australia, [1] [2] [3] is located within the Southern and Eastern hemispheres. [4]
In this book, the other two continents were categorized as being the New World (the Americas) and the Old World (Afro-Eurasia). [31] In his 1879 book Australasia , British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace commented that, "Oceania is the word often used by continental geographers to describe the great world of islands we are now entering upon ...
Although it is mostly ocean and spans many tectonic plates, Oceania is occasionally listed as one of the continents. Most of this list follows the boundaries of geopolitical Oceania, which includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. The main continental landmass of Oceania is Australia. [1]
Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its continental landmass. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, at the centre of the water hemisphere , Oceania is estimated to have a land area of about 9,000,000 square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi) and a ...
A continent is any of several large geographical regions. Continents are generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria. A continent could be a single landmass or a part of a very large landmass, as in the case of Asia or Europe. Due to this, the number of continents varies; up to seven or as few as four geographical regions ...
The four continents, plus Australia, added later.. Europeans in the 16th century divided the world into four continents: Africa, America, Asia, and Europe. [1] Each of the four continents was seen to represent its quadrant of the world—Africa in the south, America in the west, Asia in the east, and Europe in the north.
Most definitions include parts of Australasia such as Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea, and parts of Maritime Southeast Asia. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] Ethnologically , the islands of Oceania are divided into the subregions of Melanesia , Micronesia , and Polynesia .