How many continents are there? Count them: seven. They are Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia. A continent is one of the large main divisions of land on Earth. Even so, the number is not so simple. Europe and Asia are really one huge piece of land, called Eurasia. Some people count only six continents. They join North America and South America into one called America. The two are connected by a narrow strip of land called the Isthmus of Panama.

Size ranks the seven. Asia is the largest continent. Australia is the smallest. Africa is the second-largest. It covers about 30.4 million square kilometers. That is more than three times the area of the United States. Asia also has more people than any other continent. About 6 out of every 10 people on Earth live there, as of November 2026.

Some of the biggest records belong to these lands. The Andes run along the western edge of South America. They are the longest mountain range on land. Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth. As of November 2026, its official height is 8,848.86 meters. Nepal and China announced that figure together in December 2020. The Sahara in Africa covers about 9 million square kilometers. The Nile is the longest river in the world. The Amazon carries more water than any other river on Earth.

Antarctica has no countries. It has no permanent human population. Most of it is covered by a huge ice sheet. The ice is nearly 4.9 kilometers thick at its thickest point. Scientists stay at research stations there. About 5,000 stay in summer. Around 1,000 stay in winter. As of November 2026, the coldest air ever measured on Earth was -89.2 degrees Celsius. It was measured at Vostok Station in Antarctica on 21 July 1983.

The map keeps changing, too. The positions of the continents are always changing. Earth's land masses move toward and away from each other. They move about 1.5 centimeters a year, on average. Earth's outer layer is broken into about a dozen large plates. Long ago, almost all of the land was joined together. It was one huge supercontinent called Pangaea. It broke into pieces. Those pieces became today's continents.

Words to know

• continent: big land
• Eurasia: Europe plus Asia
• isthmus: narrow land bridge
• plates: moving pieces
• Pangaea: old supercontinent