Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Episode 19 - Why Isn't Greenland a Continent?

Vince B. sent in a great question, why isn't Greenland considered a continent?  Well I am no geographer, but I work with a guy who is, Dr. William Osei of the Algoma University Geography Department.


It turns out that the word continent is a pretty arbitrarily defined thing.  Basically, according to Dr. Osei, it is based pretty much on size and convention.  Greenland is actually quite small by continent standards, it is only 1/14th the size of Africa!

Thanks to Isabelle for the new music.


2 comments:

Unknown said...

Yes and you would think the same for Australia which is much larger then Greenland (I'm speculating - ie not checking)but it's classified as an island

Dave Brodbeck said...

Australia though is WAY bigger than Greenland. It is considered a continent.

Dave