Continent
Continent (大陸, tairiku), are regions of dividied geographically into seven categories: Aisa, Africa, North America, South America, Australia, Europe, and Antarctica. Since Australia is defined as the smallest continent, all land areas smaller than Australia are called islands. The largest of these is Greenland, which is approximately one-third the size of the Australian continent. Although there is no overwhelming difference in size, Greenland is by definition the largest island.
When the term continent is used in Japanese weather reports, it refers to the Eurasian continent around China and the Russian Far East. The term China Continent or Siberia Continent is also used to refer to this region, but this is not really correct in terms of the definition of a continent.
The Earth's geographic division is roughly divided into the above six continents, but the islands surrounding the continents are no longer included. Therefore, the continents and surrounding islands are collectively called the Six Continents (Asia, Europe, Africa, North America, South America, and Oceania), and the Earth is divided accordingly.
In some cases, North and South America are combined into the United States, Antarctica is added, and there are also classifications such as five continents (五大州, godaishū) and the seven continents (七大州, nanadaishū).
For details on each of the six continents, please refer to Six Continents.
