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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 ...
Asia and Europe are considered separate continents for historical reasons; the division between the two goes back to the early Greek geographers. In the modern sense of the term "continent", Eurasia is more readily identifiable as a "continent", and Europe has occasionally been described as a subcontinent of Eurasia. [68]
In this book the other two continents were categorized as being the New World (consisting of North America and South America) and the Old World (consisting of Africa, Asia and Europe). [23] In his 1879 book Australasia, British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace commented that, "Oceania is the word often used by continental geographers to ...
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.
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]
In most non-English-speaking countries Oceania is treated as a continent in the sense that it is "one of the parts of the world", and Australia is only seen as an island nation. In other non-English-speaking countries Australia and Eurasia are thought of as continents, while Asia, Europe, and Oceania are regarded as "parts of the world".
Holland America Line's 2026 Grand World Voyage visit all seven continents over 132 days.
Besides Antarctica, Australia is the only continent that developed without feline species. Feral cats may have been introduced in the 17th century by Dutch shipwrecks, and later in the 18th century by European settlers. They are now considered a major factor in the decline and extinction of many vulnerable and endangered native species. [190]