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Continent" meant, at that time, one of the three known continents, Europe, Africa and Asia, that adjoined each other (from Latin "continens"="touching") surrounded by the Ocean, which was divided by Africa into the Western, or Atlantic and Eastern, or Indian Oceans which contained the Earth's large and small islands. [16]
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]
The Continental Divide in North America in red and other drainage divides in North America The Continental Divide in Central America and South America. The Continental Divide of the Americas (also known as the Great Divide, the Western Divide or simply the Continental Divide; Spanish: Divisoria continental de las Américas, Gran Divisoria) is the principal, and largely mountainous ...
Major continental divides, showing drainage into the major oceans and seas of the world. Grey areas are endorheic basins that do not drain to the ocean.. A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...
The map of North America with the Western Interior Seaway during the Campanian. The Western Interior Seaway (also called the Cretaceous Seaway, the Niobraran Sea, the North American Inland Sea, or the Western Interior Sea) was a large inland sea that split the continent of North America into two landmasses for 34 million years.
The separation of the oceans increased marine biodiversity on both sides, and the connection between the American continents allowed for the interchange of terrestrial life. The formation of the isthmus fundamentally changed the system of inter-ocean circulation of warm and cold currents, which caused the northern polar ice cap to form. [9]
Northern America—the northern region of the North American continent, including Canada, the United States, Greenland, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and Bermuda. Latin America and the Caribbean-extending from The Bahamas and Mexico to Argentina and Chile. Central America—the countries south of Mexico and north of Colombia. The Caribbean.
Since the 1950s, [17] however, North America and South America have generally been considered by English speakers as separate continents, and taken together are called the Americas, or more rarely America. [18] [19] [3] When conceived as a unitary continent, the form is generally the continent of America in the singular.