this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2026

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Today I Learned

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TIL there is no agreement on how many continents there are. (en.wikipedia.org)

submitted 4 months ago by Quilotoa@lemmy.ca to c/til@lemmy.world

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[–] tea@lemmy.today 15 points 4 months ago (1 child)

Eh, words change and sometimes terms outlive their etymology or grow beyond it. We "hang up the phone" but no phone these days is actually hung up. 🤷

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[–] ViatorOmnium@piefed.social 13 points 4 months ago (2 children)

That's literally the same thing, we kept the expression even when we know it isn't accurate any more, because we still have the need to express the original meaning.

If anything, we should split Asia in more subcontinents.

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[–] tea@lemmy.today 3 points 4 months ago

Yeah, fair enough.

Still seems like, with the way that continent is typically defined, Eurasia should be the continent with subcontients of Europe, Asia, India, and the Middle East.

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[–] inari@piefed.zip 1 point 4 months ago

Informally, we kinda do. Middle East, East Asia, South East Asia, South Asia.

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