Almost all maps found in online image searches of “continents map” depict the standard seven-continent model of the U.S. educational establishment. A few, however, deviate from the scheme by adding additional continents. Such adjustments are understandable, as the standard model does little to help us understand the world. But merely adding a continent or two does not solve the underlying problem. An alternative model is needed, as will be explored in a later post. For now, I will consider a few maps posted online that divide the world into more then seven major landmasses.
Let us begin with a map produced by a storied publication, one that I have treasured for decades: Encyclopedia Britannica. The elementary Brittanica map posted below only slightly deviates from the standard model, adding an additional landmass between North and South America. Or is it two? The coloration scheme suggests one, but the labeling indicates two: Central America and the Caribbean. Either way, this continent (or continents), is (or are) way out-of-scale with all others. Such mapping, moreover, has little if any justification in terms of geology, biogeography, human culture, or anything else. It also defines the convention used elsewhere on the map by setting continental boundaries along geopolitical rather than physical features. The only rationale that I can imagine for putting Mexico in one continent and Guatemala in another is the economic organization formerly known as NAFTA.
The World Atlas map posted below essentially makes the same maneuver, although it does specify that Central America and the Caribbean are to be construed as separate entities. More important, it adds the “Middle East” as a tenth division of the world. But this is not the Middle East as it is conventionally defined (see the second map posted below). Egypt is excluded while Pakistan and much of Central Asia are included. The northeastern boundary of this “Middle East,” moreover, is inexplicable, as it does not correspond to geopolitical boundaries – or any other divisions that I am aware of. More bizarre is its depiction of the Black Sea as part of Europe. Other curious features include a gap between Central and South America, a significant westward displacement of South America, the deletion of Tierra del Fuego, the magnification of the Falkland/Malvinas islands (perhaps this is a misplaced Tierra del Fuego?), and the skewing of the boundary between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Simple cartographic incompetence seems to be as much of a problem here as conceptual confusion.
At first glance, the Nations Online map posted below seems to depict both the Middle East (minus most of Egypt) and Central Asia as separate continents. The caption, however, indicates that they are to be regarded as “continental subdivisions.” But to which continent do they belong? The color scheme, not surprisingly, suggests Asia, but no specification is made. The only other “continental subdivision” mapped through color is Greenland, and its hue is roughly halfway between that of North America and that of Europe. Is the viewer supposed to guess which continent it belongs to? This map also indicates that Central America and the Caribbean together form a subcontinent of South America, an idiosyncratic classification. It also has a subcontinental label for “Middle America,” which is evidently intended to denote Mexico, even though part of it sits over Cuba. Such mapping defies conventional regionalization, in which “Middle America” groups together Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean as a subdivision of North America (see the second map posted below).
The Reddit map posted below, depicting a ten-unit scheme of “comparable ‘continents’” is the most admirable of the lot. Here the cartographer is seriously grabbling with the problems inherent in the continental division of the world. But the map has strayed so far from the standard model that the term “continent” loses all meaning. What this map depicts, at least in the Eastern Hemisphere, are not “continents” but rather “world regions.” The world regional model is indeed the appropriate replacement for the continental model for general educational purposes. It has been used as such by scholars and other informed writers since the middle of the twentieth century. It is beyond time to introduce it into the elementary-school curriculum, although the chance of that happening any time soon is close to nil.
