Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
An island can also be entirely oceanic while still being associated with a continent by geology (e.g. Bermuda, the Australian Indian Ocean Territories) or by common geopolitical convention (e.g. Ascension Island, the South Sandwich Islands). Another example is the grouping into Oceania of the Pacific Islands with Australia and Zealandia.
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]
Ringmann may have been misled into crediting Vespucci by the widely published Soderini Letter, a sensationalized version of one of Vespucci's actual letters reporting on the mapping of the South American coast, which glamorized his discoveries and implied that he had recognized that South America was a continent separate from Asia. [19]
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.
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.
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]
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 ...
Of the seven most globally recognized continents, only Antarctica and Australia are completely separated from other continents by the ocean. Several continents are defined not as absolutely distinct bodies but as "more or less discrete masses of land". [20]