Here's a bit of trivia: What is the largest freshwater lake on the largest island in the largest freshwater lake?<BR><BR>(Hint: check your national parks!)

What about the Isle of Lucy? Would it be considered in-ricardo?<BR><BR>Does modus ponens come in a tube?<BR><BR>

The continents, the way we study them at schools in Europe, are:<BR><BR>Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Oceania. (Ok, excludind Antarctida). Hawai, all the island in the South Pacific, Australia and NZ belong to Oceania.

Carmen:<BR>Oceania is NOT a continent.<BR>It is the collective of approximately 25,000 islands comprised by Polynesia, Micronesia (which is comprised of the Gilbert islands, Nauru, Marshall islands, and Caroline islands) and Melanesia (Solomon islands, New Caledonia and New Guinea).

Well Rand, Oceania is not a continent accordind to American Universities but it's a continent according to European ones (and it includes Australia and NZ). The same happens to America: in the US you study that there're two different continents North America and South Americas while we study there's ONLY ONE continent called America.

So, ah, Carmen - I don't dispute what you're saying about how the continents are classified in European schools, but what logical reason can they provide for considering North and South America a single continent, but counting Europe and Asia as separate ones? I also agree with Rand that Oceania can't be a continent by any definition - even the cultural and geopolitical ones that I discount anyway. (They used to teach that the sun revolves around the earth - that didn't make it true.)

Carmen:<BR>By definition a continent is a single large land mass .<BR>Island groups are not a part of continents.

Just goes to show how INFERIOR a so-called "superior" European education can be at times!!

Bob, what is really IGNORANT is thinking that what you study in your country is the ONE and ONLY TRUTH. We should be more open-minded and realize that there're some things that depend on convenctions and that can be changed. I agree with the idea that Europe and Asia could be only one continent according to some theories but some geologists and geographers met and decided they were two different ones. There are lots of different theories and opinions, some countries take one, others take another. The same happens in the case of Oceania, there're theories (from long time ago, before the US was a nation)supporting that it's a continent.

C'mon, Bob, we're trying to have a civilized discussion here.<BR><BR>Funny sometimes how the simplest questions result in threads that just refuse to go away. It occurred to me that my earlier answer to Liam contained an error, which should have been apparent to me in Melissa's and Rand's discussion about islands, but wasn't for some reason. And that's this: the shape and extent of the continents, still defined logically as contiguous land masses, are not determined by sea level but by the continental shelf/slope break, offshore at about the 600' depth contour and ranging around the world from widths of several hundred miles to virtually nothing.<BR><BR>By that more correct definition, Indonesia is in fact part of Asia (so I was wrong - sorry, Liam), but Puerto Rico is still not part of either America, though admittedly considered by many to be part of N. America. That also takes care of the many smaller islands close to shore, which are for the most part on the continental shelves of their respective continents. Also, Britain is indeed geologically (though perhaps not geopolitically) part of Europe, and Greenland is arguably part of N. America. New Zealand is not, however, part of Australia or Oceania, the latter not being a geological construct, though as Carmen correctly points out it is recognized as a "continent" by some. Hawaii and other islands separated from the continents by abyssal depths are not part of any continent.<BR><BR>One last thought, and then I'm really done with this: I think we agree that Europe and Asia are one land mass, as are the Americas. Note also that Africa is clearly part of the same land mass, separated only by the (man-made) Suez Canal. Lastly, the Americas are linked to Asia via the continental shelf under the Bering Strait. In other words, with few exceptions, there's only one real "continent" and we're all on it. So, peace to all of you sharing our one continent in this holiday season - I'm outta here to get some work done.

I would like to say, well put Dick.<BR><BR>We should not judge others for thier countries beleives. In High school I learned the continents were N. America, S. America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Antartica, Australia.<BR>I then went to a Travel and Tourism school where we learned it was Oceana. I can totally see why people would say America is a contient, and why Europe and Asia are one.