How Many Continents Are There?

The whoren and I got uber-intellectual last night over at hapsap's place while she was packing. The question of the night was, "How many continents are there?" because someone asked me once, and I said 7, and then I couldn't name them.

So get this: it doesn't matter if you answer 5, 6 or 7. You're WRONG! (or right...). According to various sources, the answer to the question of the night could be 5, 6 or 7 depending on what you work as and where you are. For serious. From About.com: Seven Continents:

By most standards, there are a seven continents - Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. Most students in the United States are taught that there are seven continents.

In Europe and other parts of the world, many students are taught of six continents, where North and South America are combined to form a single continent of America. Thus, these six continents are Africa, America, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, and Europe.

I'm not absolutely sure how "most students in the United States" count as "most standards" while the rest of the world are counted as less than "most standards", but there you go. I'm also not absolutely sure why North and South America are classified as different continents, seeing as how a continent is defined as a large landmass (Wikipedia) or a continuous tract or extent, as of land (Source: Dictionary.com). A quick check on Google Maps (pay attention, whoren) shows that North and South America are indeed connected by a little strip of land known as Panama.

But that's not the end of the story, oh no. You're probably thinking, "Well, if a continent is a land mass separated from other land masses, then Europe and Asia should also be classified as 1 continent because they are part of the same land mass". You'd be right. Apparently Russia, Eastern Europe and Japan, which are more "geographic-centric" (whatever that means) teach the 6 continent model where Eurasia are 1 continent while North and South America are separate (Source: Wikipedia).

Blows your mind, doesn't it?

Points to ponder:

• If Australia is the world's biggest continent, why isn't Greenland (the world's biggest island) a continent too?
• If Antartica is a continent, then what about the North Pole? We looked this one up but that'll be an update for another time.
• Who the hell came up with this shit?