Continents and oceans
Geography · Key Stage 1 · The School
Seven continents
The seven continents are AFRICA, ANTARCTICA, ASIA, AUSTRALIA (Oceania), EUROPE, NORTH AMERICA and SOUTH AMERICA. Asia is by far the biggest and holds the most people. Antarctica has no permanent residents at all. Point to each one on a globe and say its name out loud. That is how they stick.
Five oceans
The oceans are the PACIFIC, the ATLANTIC, the INDIAN, the SOUTHERN and the ARCTIC. The Pacific is the biggest. It is bigger than all the land put together. Trace a finger from Britain west across the Atlantic and you reach North America. Keep going and you cross the Pacific.
Where we are
Britain is in Europe, in the north-west, on the edge of the Atlantic. Find it on the map. Then find somewhere you have family, or somewhere you have heard of. Say which continent that is in. A world map only becomes useful once you can place yourself on it.
Put a finger on Portugal. Trace east across Europe to the Ural Mountains in Russia. Now keep going into Asia. Your finger never left the land. Europe and Asia are one continuous landmass. They are divided by an agreement rather than by water. That is why Russia appears in both, and why some countries teach six continents rather than seven.
Why the number of continents depends who you ask
Most schools in Britain teach seven continents. Some countries teach six. They join Europe and Asia into Eurasia, because there is no ocean between them and the line through the Urals is one people drew. Others teach five. None of them is wrong. A continent is a large landmass, and large and separate are judgements. That is worth knowing early. It is the first time most people meet a fact that turns out to be a convention.