Australia is a unique place in many ways, either for its natural beauty or for the amount of eerie animals that inhabit it. However, this is also the only place on Earth that qualifies to be called both a country and a continent at the same time.
At this point, you may well be asking yourself: “But isn’t the continent called Oceania?”. Well, the definition of a continent may not be as concrete as it seems. Want to know how it all works? We’ll talk more about this situation during the next few paragraphs. Check it out!
Particularities of Australia
(Source: Pixabay)
One thing is certain: it is undeniable that it exists a landmass in the place where Australia is, with defined borders and a political organization. Therefore, we cannot question the existence of a country in that region. After all, a country is defined as “a nation with its own government, occupying a certain territory”.
Since 1901, the Commonwealth of Australia — as it is officially known — fits this description perfectly. The claim that Australia would also be a continent, however, is a little more shaky. The reason? There is no scientific definition to categorize what exactly these geographic giants are.
In most cases, a continent is marked by being a large landmass that has its own tectonic plates and that is isolated enough to promote unique cultures, not to mention the diversity of plants and animals. that become symbols of that region.
However, Europe and Asia share some pieces of land and are not considered a single unit. In this case, their cultural differences are such that it was necessary to separate them into two continents, regardless of whether they share a tectonic plate or if Russia has portions of territory on both sides.
Ranking Australia
(Source: Pixabay)
With all the information presented above, the what would make Australia worthy of being called a “mainland” rather than an “island”? In this case, the size of the region is what makes the situation more complicated. After all, Australia would be the smallest continent at 7.6 million km² — something that is much closer to the size of Greenland than South America.
So what makes Australia a continent and Greenland an island? The distinctiveness of Australian culture is the biggest point here. Because it is so isolated from other places, the place has seen the growth of several indigenous peoples with different cultures, as well as a large population of wild animals that cannot be found in any other corner of the planet.
In the case of Greenland, on the other hand, both the culture and the native animals are found throughout the Arctic. Therefore, categorizing Australia as a country and a continent at the same time is just an interesting way of recognizing how this region has great particularities.
