This page explains how the world was divided up into continents for the purposes of the Mountain Explorer.
Traditionally, there are seven continents: North and South America are divided at the Panama/Colombia border; Africa and Asia by the Suez Canal; Europe and Asia by the Urals, Caspian Sea, Caucasus, and Black Sea; and Asia and Australia between the Moluccas and New Guinea.
When dividing the mountains of the world into regions, the artificial Europe/Asia division becomes a problem, since two mountain ranges, the Urals and the Caucasus, form the border. Since Asia is still an enormous continent, I've decided to create an new, eighth "continent", the "Middle East". This new continent removes the southwestern parts of Asia, making the massive continent a bit more manageable, and also solves the thorny problem of the Caucasus by placing them all in the Middle East.
With no more peripheral Caucasus, Mont Blanc and the Alps can regain their rightful place as monarchs of Europe. The minor Urals can safely remain European, since they can't be in the Middle East and Asia already has too many mountains.
This new continent makes sense outside of a mountain-classification context, too. Israel, Turkey, and the Persian Gulf are not "Asian" in the way we think of China, Japan, India, or Indonesia. Using Iran's northeastern and eastern borders as the limits of this new Middle East continent seems like a logical solution to many geographical issues.
North America: Composed of Greenland, Canada, the USA,
Mexico, Central America, Bermuda, and all Caribbean islands.
South America: Includes the Galapagos and Falkland
Islands.
Europe: Includes Iceland, the Urals, and the Azores.
Excludes the Caucasus.
Africa: Includes Madeira, the Canaries, and most mid-Atlantic
and mid-Indian Ocean islands. Excludes the Sinai.
Asia: Excludes Iran, the rest of the Middle East, the
Caucasus, and the Urals. Includes the Malay Archipelago out to the
Moluccas.
Middle East: Composed of the Caucasus, Anatolia, the Levant,
the Sinai, Arabia, Iraq, and Iran.
Australia/Oceania: Composed of Australia, New Zealand, New
Guinea and all Pacific Islands out to Hawaii and Easter Island.
Antarctica: Includes South Georgia, the South Shetlands, the
South Orkneys, and all small islands south of Africa, Asia, Australia, and
South America.
Back to Continents home page.
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