Continent

A continent is one of the main land masses of Earth (or of a planet--on the hypothesis that there are other planets with oceans and land masses similar to the Earth's).

A land mass larger than a continent is called a supercontinent. The classification of land masses as continents, supercontinents and islands is by enumeration: the following land masses are declared to be continents:

Africa

Antarctica

Asia

Australia

Europe

North America

South America

Continents are often combined with nearby islands to form regions of the same name: e.g., the British Isles are placed with Europe.

The Pacific islands and Australia are sometimes combined as Oceania.