what was the world known as before the continents divided and how did they come to be where they are?
414852
pangea, and they came to be the way they are because of the atlantic undersea tectonic plate movements.
353158
A former name for Africa, so used because its hinterland was largely unknown and therefore mysterious to Europeans until the 19th century. Henry M. Stanley was probably the first to use the term in his 1878 account Through the Dark Continent.
924661
7 is what I learned in school.\nBut, some people do classify Eurasia as one continent since it's one large landmass divided only by the Ural Mountains (It's divided culturally, not really geographically.)... so that would make it 6, in a sense.
501574
continental puzzle\nmatching rocks\nmatching fossils\nmatching mountain ranges\nmatching glacial deposits called till\n\nNot only was there one large supercontinent, but Pangaea was located along the equator so that places like present day Antarctica had lush forests & abundant fauna. We know this b/c there are fossils of tropical type animals & plants found there.\n\nThe Appalachian Mt. chain that runs up the eastern half of the U.S. from Arkansas all the way up to Maine where it ends only to start back up on Iceland and then back again in the U.K. They are the same age & same rock type & when you put the "puzzle" together they would line up.\n\nThe Andes Mts. in S.America is the same way. The chain ends & starts back up again on Antarctica.
674321
Pangea was the supercontinet - 180 million years ago that is. It broke out into Laurasia [ North America (Greenland), Europe, and Asia] and Gondwanaland (Antarctica, Australia, South America and India's subcontinet) through plate tectonics.
122544
a traducir esta respuesta al español vaya a:\nhttp://babelfish.altavista.com/\n\nContinental drift is now referred to as Plate Tectonics. It is a well proven theory with multiple sets of observations that demonstrate that it is taking place today as you read this. The recent tsunami in Indonesia was an indirect result of plate tectonic movement that is taking place on the earth continuously. The Pacific Ocean is currently spreading by about 4 centimeters each year (about 2 inches). \n\nIf you examine the outline of many continents you will be able to see similarities in the shape, much like jigsaw puzzle parts that are not connected. South American and Africa are a good example of this. One interesting form of proof of the spreading that split South American away from Africa are oil reservoirs in West Africa and Brazil that have oil that is chemically and biologically identical. (All petroleum can be identified using special biomarkers and analyses as unique to its own source)  Since there is no way they could have migrated through the earth to these widespread locations, that oil must have been formed while Africa and South America were still connected. There are many more examples of biological organisms that are found on widely separated continents that are related. Another great example of this is that fossils found on Antarctica that come from tropical plants and wood show that that continent was once near the equator. Similar things can be found in northern Siberia, and northern Canada and Alaska. \n\nOther examples of this process and the jig-saw puzzle like pieces that have come together are many mountain ranges. In the high Sierra Mountains, above 10,000 ft elevations are deposits of marine limestone (now marble) that were once reefs on islands in the ocean we now call the Pacific Ocean. \n\nOver the past 250 million years a supercontinent called Pangaea has spread apart to the continents we know today. You can see a good illustration of this at \nhttp://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/vwlessons/lessons/Pangea/Pangea4.html\nThat site has some good diagrams of Pangaea and how it has broken up and the plates have moved. It also explains the mechanism. \nHere is an animated version that shows the breakup:\nhttp://www.scotese.com/sfsanim.htm\n\nPrior to Pangaea, there was another supercontinent called Gondwana and another supercontinent called Laurasia combined with Gondwana to form Pangaea. Prior to the consolidation of Gondwana was another supercontinent called Rodinia. This supercontinent formation is apparently and hypothetically a cycle that the planet completes every few hundred million years, moving continents, building mountain ranges, and rifting other continents apart creating new oceans. \nOne of the best web sites on the internet that shows the various stages of the planet's plate tectonics is the Paleomap Project here:\nhttp://www.scotese.com/earth.htm\n Here is an illustration of Rodinia\nhttp://www.scotese.com/earth.htm\n Here is an illustration of Rodinia\nhttp://www.scotese.com/Rodinia3.htm\n\nSource(s):\n\nI'm a geologist.
565410
This world STARTED when the last one ENDED.\nMeditate on it.
236502
Mostly D in Britain anyway.  The British Isles were almost entirely covered in trees.  Unfortunately they were chopped down by the anglo-saxons who took over after the Roman Empire withdrew from that part of the world.\n\nAsian countries were isolated until about two hundred years ago.  There is not much we know about asia from that time.  The Asia referred to on old texts was actually Asia-minor which is now known as turkey.  It was not until the 1400's that the western world had much contact with Asia (other than the middle east) and it was mostly western Asian countries such as India.
620907
Both continents of the Americas were fully populated by Native Americans in 1492.  Columbus was only the first Spaniard to find the New World.  The Vikings had settled for a short time in Newfoundland in the 11th century.
801024
The continents are divided based on the geological and geographical locations. We have seven continents on our earth. Viz., Asia, North America, Africa, Australia, Antartica, Europe & South America.
636146
There are seven continents in the world.\nAsia\nAfrica\nEurope\nAntarctica\nSouth America\nNorth America\nAustralasia/Oceana
1117136
continents \n\nThe large parts of the surface of the Earth that rise above sea level. The seven major continents are Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. \n\n\nContinents are made from the lightest rocks in the Earth. Some of these are also the oldest known rocks on Earth, with an age of 3.5 billion years, measured by radioactive dating.\nAccording to the theory of plate tectonics, continents move along piggy-back on the tectonic plates like rafts floating on water.\n\ntry this link for the best information =\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent
6393
It was COUNTROS - Lord of imaginary borders!!!   Actually, countries arose naturally out of the territorial nature of mankind. Individual caves belonged to individual cavemen, separate hills and plains belonged to separate groups of men and women, separate kingdoms controlled separate regions, and so on... Nothing was ever established to begin it all, it was simply accepted because everyone throughout our history divided the lands more and more.   I think that countries should exist, to break governing responsibilities down further than one man to rule all, but countries should never rival each other. Additionally, different countries have generated different civilizations, and with them different values, lifestyles, artforms, and countless different ways to view life itself.
604567
First, the Europeans had known right along about Africa (which was a short hop across the Mediterranean) and about Asia, though their dealings with the Far East (India to China) came rather late, and were a result of contact with Muslims, esp. after the Crusades.\n\nAs for America, the discovers knew NOTHING about America (leaving aside for now the brief settlement from an earlier discovery by people from Iceland --by way of Greenland) when Columbus stumbled into it when trying to get to the Far East more quickly by crossing the Atlantic (rather than trekking by land or sailing around Africa).  This is, of course, why they were "discoverers"!  (Actually, he would have been a discoverer if he had found the route he was looking for rather than a new continent he wasn't looking for.)\n\nIronically, Columbus's critics --who said it was too far and too dangerous-- had a much more accurate estimate of the earth's circumference than he did!   \n\nFurther irony, Columbus never knew that he HAD discovered a new continent.  He died believing he had reached the edge of the "Indies" [hence they are called the West Indies to this day].   It was Amerigo Vespucci who first concluded, while exploring the coast and part of the interior of South America in a 1501-02 voyage, that this was not part of the Far East at all, but a new continent. (The widespread circulation of his letter on this point explains how he became associated with the discovery itself and why mapmakers put a version of HIS name on a map of the "new world" in 1507.)\n\nOne other consideration -- why didn't they sail out to attempt such things earlier?   Because it was only in the 15th century that Europeans (beginning with the Portugese) developed the navigational tools and skills to undertake such voyages.\n\n**Note to mon l -- none of this had ANYTHING to do with "falling off the edge of the earth".  All these folks knew (and the educated had known for many centuries) that the world was round (contra later anti-Catholic propaganda and a blunder in a popular 19th century biography of Columbus that has influenced the popular understanding ever since).  The obstacle the experts --including some fine navigators-- saw was the great DISTANCE to Asia -- and on that point, they were correct!
886366
European nations began that long before the U.S. was even created. The U.S. did so because they ran out of frontier and wanted to expand outward, both in the Pacific and the Caribbean. It may have also been due to international competition, or at least that's my opinion.
1166808
You already have the answer: geographically they are clearly one continent. So you can't receive a geographical answer unless you were wrong. But you refuse to receive any answer that is social or political. So you won't find the answer.\nJust in case: in many countries it is called "the Eurasian continent".
138154
No....Thare are only 5 continents when u look at at globally geographically through geographical time.\n\n1. North and South America\n2. Africa\n3. Eurasia \n4. Australia\n5. Antartica