Earth's land comes in seven big parts. Each part is a continent. A continent is one of the large main divisions of land on Earth. Here are the seven. Asia. Africa. North America. South America. Antarctica. Europe. Australia. Can you find them on a map?

Asia is the largest continent. Australia is the smallest. Africa is the second-largest. As of November 2026, about 6 out of every 10 people on Earth live in Asia. No other one has more people. Asia is big. It is full of people.

Africa has the Sahara. It covers about 9 million square kilometers. The Nile is in Africa too. It is the longest river in the world. It is long. It is very long. No river is longer. That is a lot of river.

The Amazon is in South America. It has more water than any other river on Earth. It is a mighty river. North America and South America touch. A narrow strip of land joins them. It is called the Isthmus of Panama.

Antarctica is covered by a huge ice sheet. It has no countries. Nobody lives there for good. No one calls it home all year. Who stays there? Some scientists do. They live at research stations. About 5,000 stay in summer. About 1,000 stay in winter.

As of November 2026, the coldest air ever measured was -89.2 degrees Celsius. It was in Antarctica. The place was Vostok Station. The date was 21 July 1983. Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth. It sits between Nepal and Tibet.

Long ago, almost all of Earth's land was joined together. It was one huge land. Later it broke apart. The pieces became the lands we know today. Look at a map. Count them. There are seven. Each one is a piece of the old land.

Words to know

• continent: big land
• Antarctica: icy continent
• isthmus: narrow land bridge
• Celsius: heat scale