the names and boundaries of continents are arbitrary and don’t matter. that said, the most common definition, really more of a vibe, of a continent is size. Europe is 3 times larger than India. It’s twice as large as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and Afghanistan combined.
There’s way more tectonic plates than continents and a lot of landmasses we think of as contiguous are on different plates. Itd be very impractical to try to make them the same. Iceland would be a transcontinental country, California would be its own continent, Asia would be several continents, there would be continents that are just patches of the Pacific Ocean or the Caribbean, and so on
the names and boundaries of continents are arbitrary and don’t matter. that said, the most common definition, really more of a vibe, of a continent is size. Europe is 3 times larger than India. It’s twice as large as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and Afghanistan combined.
I was under the impression that continent boundaries were defined by tectonic plates. Is that not correct?
There’s way more tectonic plates than continents and a lot of landmasses we think of as contiguous are on different plates. Itd be very impractical to try to make them the same. Iceland would be a transcontinental country, California would be its own continent, Asia would be several continents, there would be continents that are just patches of the Pacific Ocean or the Caribbean, and so on
No