Australia - Country or continent?

[neorichieb1971]

I've lived in the UK and the USA. When I lived in the USA everyone was telling me that Australia is a continent. In the UK I was taught at school that Australia is a country, the news represents Australia as a country. If Australia was a continent, what continent would it be in?

The continent taught to us in the UK is Australasia which includes New Zealand and a few other satellite islands.

So my question is, are American schools teaching that Australia is a continent? Because it sounds like it to me.


Thanks,

Richie.

[Thamiel]

Aussie here. We're generally taught that we're both.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

[guigui]

Taught in France : Australy is a country, belonging to the continent called "Océanie".

[it290]

Aussie here. We're generally taught that we're both.

This is also what I was taught growing up in the US. You sometimes hear the continent referred to as 'Oceania' to encompass New Guinea, New Zealand, Micronesia and Polynesia, but as those are separate from the main landmass they'd be considered distinct from the main continental body.

[CIT]

What are you guys talking about? Everybody knows Australia is a small, alpine country in Central Europe, famous for Apple Strudel and being the birthplace of Adolf Hitler.

[qmish]

I dunno what they teach ya, but here in Russia we were taught for both "continents" and "parts of world".

America is "part of world" here, but two "continents", south and north.

Australia is both continent and country, while "Australia and Oceania" is "part of world". Some call it just Oceania though.

the news represents Australia as a country

Cause news talk about countries, and science tv show talk about continents?

[Xyga]

Cuntry or cuntinent, Straya is British Texas*

*tho bigger with more deadly animals

Memes aside, yeah always been told Oceania is the continent, and Australia a country.
Though some give you the political definition (AU and other economic/cultural sphere island nations), some the geological (landmass).

[TransatlanticFoe]

UK and was taught it was both, because it is a country which also forms by far the greatest landmass on a major tectonic plate. I think Australasia is generally used because it both reduces confusion and assigns New Zealand, which you have to do in the UK coming from an increased historical focus on the Commonwealth and colonialism. They speak English innit.

Continents are one of those things that no-one wants to unify the definition of. Commonly in the West you separate Europe and Asia, although they both reside on the same plate, seemingly for cultural reasons - but you still lump the rest together with their major tectonic plates. Similarly I've seen South America, defined as a continent, to include Mexico - as though it is synonymous with Latin America (which it is not). As it is, the common Western taught definitions appear to be a mashup of physical and human geography - either it's plate tectonics except Europe/Asia separation, or it's broad cultural separations with Central America and Japan/Indonesia being inconsistently bracketed with something else. I've even seen Antarctica excluded on the basis that no bugger actually lives there, so who cares.

You'd think it'd be simple if we just stuck with landmasses on the major tectonic plates and called it a day!