Why is australia a continent and greenland is not

This would definitely be a possible change in the future, as the current political climate is steering slowly but seemingly surely in a direction away from the kingdom of Denmark. The true size of Greenland, should it be a Continent? By Lasse Kyed Verified Expert.

Greenland is the 12th largest country and is known as the largest island in the world. Picture of people walking on the Greenland Ice Sheet Greenland is considered to be part of the North American continent. However, if population determined continental status, Antarctica would not be considered a continent, either. Australia and Greenland have quite a few features in common. Australia is an island in the South Pacific, roughly 7.

It is just over 2. It turns out that there are no official conditions that each continent has to meet in order to be considered a continent, which explains why there are so many different models of thinking when it comes to how many continents there are. However, there are several largely accepted factors that classify different regions of the world as continents.

These factors include tectonic independence from other continents, unique flora and fauna, cultural uniqueness, and local belief in continental status. Looking at Australia and Greenland, Australia meets several of these conditions.

Australia rests on its own tectonic plate called the Australian Plate. It certainly has its own unique flora and fauna, with native animals like kangaroos, wombats, and Tasmanian Devils unlike any others in the world. Lastly, the locals consider themselves to live on both an island and a continent, fulfilling the last of the criteria.

Greenland, on the other hand, sits on the North American tectonic plate. It is not geologically separate from Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Although Greenland has fifteen unique species of plants, its fauna, such as reindeer, polar bears, and arctic foxes, can also be found elsewhere, such as in Canada. While Greenland does have its own culture, it is considered part of the larger North American arctic culture.

Finally, Greenlanders do not, for the most part, believe that they live on a continent. They consider themselves islanders. These definitions are shaky, however. Looking at a map of tectonic plates, you can see that Europe sits on the Eurasian Tectonic Plate along with most of Asia. Only cultural difference and a feeling of separateness defines it as a separate continent.

Similarly, India has its own tectonic plate as well—but in this case, a sense of similar culture and flora and fauna makes India part of Asia rather than its own continent. In this case, Australia succeeds where Greenland does not, and a line is drawn between what makes the smallest continent and the largest island. Wikipedia also lists quite a few others in Kenya and Tanzania at Mount Kilimanjaro. Hi Emily! I read your citation link!

Sounds like snow-capped mountains… not really glaciers in the traditional sense. But still… I learned something new! Thank you! Sadly, Australia is and has been just an island for awhile now.

Some continue to use Australia and some Australasia. What similar culture? And with Whom? India has kind of similar culture with pakistan ,srilanka,nepal,bangladesh…so all of them together are called the indian subcontinent.

Uhhhhh… also the fact that australia is more than 3 times as big as Greenland, you do realize the mercator projection is very distorted. Greenland is roughly 2. The appearance on the map really has no bearing on that. Daven Hiskey. So, "Greenland isn't big, the map distorts it.

Australia is not an island. Greenland is the largest island in the world as indicated by the Encyclopedia Britannica and other sources. Also the definition of an island is a land mass surrounded by water AND not a continent. If Australia is an island so would be Antartica. The fact that reference materials classify one of the places as an island and the other as a continent without any clearcut definitional justification was the whole point of the article.

ALL complete land masses on the globe are surrounded by water. So Greenland has a small population but so does Antarctica. Can you even say that Antarctica has a population? It is the smallest continent. America North and South is a piece of land several times larger than Australia.

Africa-Eurasia is even larger. Of course Australia is going to be more Western in ideology if they were ruled by Britain and ended up having thousands of immigrants come over and discriminating on the aboriginals. That is the only reason it be more unique in culture because they do not have the Pacific Polynesian type of culture and making English official. So that I think is the worst reason why it is a continent and not just considered an island of Asia for example.

If Denmark had killed off the Inuits and only Danish were living, would it be considered part of Europe then? I assume its kind of Western in ideology too for being part of Denmark. An extremely well written, obviously well researched, and enjoyable article. My compliments to Emily Upton. I am a 60 year young public school teacher of 36 years and I have wondered about this many times; you thoroughly explained it. The reason why australia is a continent is also becos it has a varied climatic zone….

I find these distortions interesting. While the Queen is head of the Commonwealth this gives her no legal standing in Commonwealth countries.

In some Commonwealth countries eg Australia the Queen is head of state, in some eg India , not. Most Commonwealth countries were once British colonies, but others were not. In theory any country can join the Commonwealth. Why is Greenland not a continent? Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights.

Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Matt Rosenberg. Geography Expert. Updated December 31, Featured Video.