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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 ...
Oceania is the smallest continent in land ... In his 1879 book Australasia, ... "the whole region has sometimes been called Oceania, and sometimes Australasia ...
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]
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 ...
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 .
(Definitions of "continents" are a physical and cultural construct dating back centuries, long before the advent or even knowledge of plate tectonics; thus, defining a "continent" falls into the realm of physical and cultural geography (i.e. geopolitics), while continental plate definitions fall under plate tectonics in the realm of geology.)
Australia is the driest inhabited continent; its annual rainfall averaged over continental area is less than 500 mm. [148] The population density is 3.4 inhabitants per square kilometre, although the large majority of the population lives along the temperate south-eastern coastline.