Full transcript
0:01In an previous video of mine, I talked about 'America'... and how this could refer to both
0:04a country or a continent.
0:06In English, it generally refers to the country: the United States of America. But in other
0:10languages (Spanish, for example), it refers to the continent.
0:14However, in English, these are 2 separate continents, part of the 7-continent model:
0:19North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Antarctica, and the topic of this video:
0:24Australia.
0:25So... is Australia a country or a continent?
0:28Well, Australia is one of the 193 member of the United Nations.
0:32Although, just because a country is a member of the UN, doesn't necessarily mean that all
0:36other members agree that that country... is a country.
0:39For example, North and South Korea don't recognise each other, both believing themselves to be
0:43the legitimate government of all of Korea.
0:46Turkey doesn't recognise Cyprus because of the situation with Northern Cyprus.
0:50Even the most populated country in the world, the People's Republic of China, isn't recognised
0:54by 22 UN members, who recgonise the Republic of China is the legitimate government of China,
1:00confined to the island of Taiwan.
1:02And the least recognised UN member, with 32 fellow members not recognising them as country...
1:08Israel, because of the... minor issue of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
1:12But anyway... this is no such issue for Australia. Gaining independence from the British Empire
1:17in 1901, and with a population of more than 23 million... everyone agrees - Australia
1:22is a country.
1:24Of course, saying Australia is a country is kind of stating the obvious. That was never
1:27really in dispute. The real issue is when it comes to the Australian continent.
1:31Like I said, there are 7 continents in the English-speaking world. And while there's
1:36disagreement in the Western Hemisphere about whether it's 'America' or North and South
1:40America... there's also disagreement down under as well.
1:42First of all, the word 'Australia' in the context of a continent, has no official definition.
1:48The border between Australia and Asia is not clearly defined.
1:51East Timor may or may not be part of the Australian continent. Although generally speaking it's
1:56usually considered part of South-East Asia.
1:58The most common definition of the Australian continent is: mainland Australia, Tasmania,
2:03and the island of New Guinea, which is comprised of the independent country of Papua New Guinea,
2:07as well as two Indonesian provinces.
2:10The reason for this, is that all these islands lie on the same continental shelf.
2:14But this 7 continent model is flawed. Because... what continent is New Zealand part of? And
2:20what about the other 11 independent countries in South Pacific?
2:23Well, technically, they're not part of any continent.
2:27So one of two things tends to happen... either they're incorrectly included as part of Australia,
2:31or there are countries that don't belong to any continent.
2:34The problem is, the word continent has no clear definition. The continents of the world
2:38are by convention, and not by any strict criteria.
2:41In fact, if you look up the word 'continent' in a dictionary, usually you'll just find
2:45some vague definition and a list of the 7 continents.
2:48So with the 7 continent model, 12 countries are not counted as part of any continent.
2:53Now, you might think this sounds logical. I mean, if a country is in the middle of an
2:58ocean, it's really not part of any land-mass, right?
3:01Well, this doesn't seem to be a problem for other continents. Iceland, for example, is
3:06considered part of Europe, despite being an island country hundreds of miles away from
3:09the rest of Europe.
3:11And what about Madagascar? It's considered part of Africa despite being on a totally
3:14different continental shelf. And what about Seychelles, for the matter? No where no any
3:19land-mass, yet also considered part of Africa.
3:23So the definitions of the Australian continent are limited to the continental shelf, yet
3:27other continents are much less strict about what countries are part of that continent.
3:31For convenience, the term 'Oceania' refers to all countries and islands in the general
3:35South Pacific region.
3:37Oceania is split into 4 different subregions: Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia.
3:43The term 'Australasia', however, is a bit redundant.
3:45See... while the other 3 subregions are clearly defined, Australasia is not. And even with
3:51its most limited definition, causes over-lapping between the subregions.
3:55Australasia may simply refer to Australia and New Zealand. In fact, in the years 1908
4:00and 1912, Australia and New Zealand teamed up and competed in the Olympics together as
4:04'Australasia'.
4:05Wider definitions may include the island of New Guinea, and possibly even the whole of
4:10Melanesia.
4:11But even if we just take Australasia to mean just Australia and New Zealand. That still
4:15puts New Zealand as part of 2 different subregions of Oceania.
4:18Oceania though, is not a continent. It is instead classed a geographic region.
4:23Well... in English that is. In other languages, Oceania is one of the continents of the world.
4:30Which makes sense: all countries are part of a continent and there's also no name confusion
4:34between Australia the country and Australia the continent.
4:37But in English, Australia is both a country and a continent, although they mean different
4:42things.
4:42The United Nations Geo-scheme, which divides the world into different regions, uses Oceania.
4:47And one of the subregions is simply called 'Australia and New Zealand'.
4:51So... to sum up: there are 7 continents of world. This is Australia, the country, this
4:56is Australia, the continent. Both of which are part of the wider geographic region known
5:00as Oceania, which itself is divided into 4 subregions: Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia,
5:06Polynesia.
5:06Thanks for watching.