A continent is one of the very large areas of land on Earth. Most people learn that there are seven: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia (often called Oceania). Asia is the biggest and has the most people. Australia is the smallest. Antarctica is the coldest and has no towns at all, only scientists who visit. Together, the seven continents cover about 29 per cent of our planet. The rest is ocean!
The Seven Continents From Biggest to Smallest
| Continent | Size (about) | People (about) | Countries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asia | 44.6 million km² | 4.8 billion | 48 |
| Africa | 30.4 million km² | 1.5 billion | 54 |
| North America | 24.7 million km² | 600 million | 23 |
| South America | 17.8 million km² | 440 million | 12 |
| Antarctica | 14.2 million km² | No one lives there | 0 |
| Europe | 10.2 million km² | 745 million | 44 |
| Australia / Oceania | 8.5 million km² | 45 million | 14 |
Here is a memory trick for the seven names: Eat An Apple As A Nice Snack, which stands for Europe, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Africa, North America and South America. And here is a fun pattern: almost all the continents start and end with the same letter A, including Asia, Africa, Antarctica, Australia and, if you join North and South, America. Only Europe does not.
Asia: The Giant Continent
Asia is so big that all the other continents' land put together would not be much more than twice its size. More than half of all the people on Earth live in Asia, including the two countries with the most people, India and China. Asia has the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest, which is 8,849 m tall, about as high as a passenger plane flies. It also has the lowest place on dry land, the shore of the Dead Sea, more than 400 m below sea level. Giant pandas, tigers, orangutans and Komodo dragons all live in Asia. The biggest country in the world, Russia, stretches across the north of Asia and into Europe, and the Himalaya mountains have more than a hundred peaks over 7,000 m.
Africa: Deserts, Savannas and Big Animals
Africa is the second-biggest continent and has the most countries: 54. The Sahara, in the north, is the largest hot desert in the world, about as big as the whole United States. The Nile, which flows north through Egypt, is usually called the longest river on Earth, about 6,650 km long. Africa is famous for its animals. The African elephant is the biggest animal that lives on land, and giraffes, lions, zebras, hippos and gorillas live there too. Africa is also the only continent that sits in all four halves of the world, north and south of the equator and east and west of the prime meridian. Find out more in our page about Africa for kids.
North America: From Ice to Rainforest
North America stretches from the icy Arctic in the north, near the North Pole, to the warm rainforests of Central America in the south. It has 23 countries, including Canada, the United States and Mexico. Canada is the second-biggest country in the whole world. The world's biggest island, Greenland, is part of North America too, although it belongs to Denmark. The five Great Lakes, between Canada and the United States, hold about a fifth of all the fresh lake and river water on the Earth's surface. The highest mountain is Denali, in Alaska, at 6,190 m.
South America: The Amazon and the Andes
South America has twelve countries, and Brazil is the biggest, covering almost half the continent. The Amazon rainforest, the largest rainforest in the world, grows around the Amazon River, which carries more water than any other river on Earth. Along the west side runs the Andes, the longest mountain range above the sea, about 7,000 km long. South America also has the world's highest waterfall, Angel Falls in Venezuela, which drops 979 m. The Atacama Desert in Chile is so dry that some places there have gone years without any rain. Sloths, jaguars, llamas and toucans live on this continent.
Antarctica: The Frozen Continent
Antarctica, around the South Pole, is covered by a sheet of ice that is more than 4 km thick in places. It holds about 90 per cent of all the ice on Earth and most of the world's fresh water. It is the coldest place on the planet. The lowest temperature ever measured by a weather station was −89.2 °C, at Vostok Station in 1983. It is also very dry and windy, so it counts as a desert. No one lives there all the time, but a few thousand scientists stay at research stations in the summer, and fewer in the winter. Emperor penguins raise their chicks there in the dark winter. Our page on Antarctica for kids has more about life on the ice.
Europe: Lots of Countries Close Together
Europe is the second-smallest continent, but it has 44 countries packed close together. That means you can sometimes travel through three or four countries in one day by train. The smallest country in the world, Vatican City, is in Europe. So is Iceland, an island where volcanoes and glaciers sit side by side. It is inside the city of Rome and is smaller than many parks. The longest river in Europe is the Volga, in Russia, about 3,530 km long. Europe and Asia are actually joined together in one big piece of land, which is sometimes called Eurasia. People have decided where the line between them goes, along the Ural Mountains in Russia.
Australia and Oceania: Islands and Kangaroos
Australia is the smallest continent, and it is also a country, the only one that covers a whole continent by itself. Many maps and schools use the name Oceania instead, which includes Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and thousands of small islands in the Pacific Ocean. Australia has animals found nowhere else, such as kangaroos, koalas, wombats and the platypus, a mammal that lays eggs. Off its north-east coast is the Great Barrier Reef, the largest coral reef system in the world, more than 2,300 km long and big enough to be seen from space.
Record Breakers
Each continent holds some world records. The hottest air temperature ever officially recorded, 56.7 °C, was measured in Death Valley, California, in North America, in 1913. The wettest place is thought to be Mawsynram, in north-eastern India in Asia, where more than 11,000 mm of rain can fall in a year, enough to cover a two-storey house. The biggest desert on Earth is not the Sahara but Antarctica, because a desert is a place with very little rain or snow, not necessarily a hot one. The deepest lake, Lake Baikal in Russia, is in Asia and is more than 1,600 m deep. And the largest island that is not a continent, Greenland, belongs to North America.
Quick Quiz: Which Continent Is It?
Test yourself with these questions, then check the answers below.
- Which continent is home to kangaroos and koalas?
- On which continent would you find Egypt and the pyramids?
- Which continent has no countries at all?
- Which continent has the country of Brazil?
- Which continent has the most people?
- Which two continents are joined in one piece of land sometimes called Eurasia?
Answers: 1. Australia (Oceania). 2. Africa. 3. Antarctica. 4. South America. 5. Asia. 6. Europe and Asia. How many did you get right?
Are There Really Seven?
Not everyone counts seven continents. In some countries, children learn that North and South America are one continent called America, which makes six. Some geographers join Europe and Asia together as Eurasia, which also makes six. Others count five, the number of rings on the Olympic flag, which stand for the five inhabited continents. None of these is wrong. People just group the land in different ways. Grown-ups who want to go deeper can read our full guide to the seven continents.
The Continents Are Moving!
Here is something amazing: the continents are moving very slowly, about as fast as your fingernails grow, which is a few centimetres a year. The Earth's outer shell is broken into huge pieces called plates, and the continents ride on top of them. About 300 million years ago, all the land was joined together in one giant supercontinent that scientists call Pangaea. Over millions of years it broke apart, and the pieces drifted into the continents we know today. If you look at a map, you can see that the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa fit together like puzzle pieces. That is because they were once joined!
And Don't Forget the Oceans
The continents are surrounded by five oceans: the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian, the Southern and the Arctic. The Pacific is the biggest. It is so large that all the continents could fit inside it with room to spare. Oceans cover about 71 per cent of Earth, which is why our planet looks blue from space. You can learn about each one in our guide to how many oceans there are.