How many continents are on the Earth?
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.
1069650
7.  North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Antarctica, Australia, Africa
503047
192 countries exist in the world as of now
142250
Visit all seven continents.
171299
Africa is the world's second-largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30,370,000 km² (11,730,000 sq mi) including its adjacent islands, it covers 5.9% of the Earth's total surface area, and 20.3% of the total land area. With over 840,000,000 people (as of 2005) in 61 territories, it accounts for more than 12% of the world's human population.
761167
Good question, and a tough one to answer, although I'm skeptical of the "all known criteria" piece of it.  I did browse much of the Wikipedia entry, and I also have a globe here to look at.\n\nTo rephrase this question, I guess we could say, (1) why is it not a continent, and (2) why is it a subcontinent?\n\nTraditionally, there are six or seven continents -- North & South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica.  Sometimes Europe & Asia are combined into Eurasia, and some people like to combine the Americas.\n\nSize and geographic separation seem to be important ... the Central America connection is pretty narrow, as is the Suez connection.  On the other hand, the Ural mountains separating Europe from Asia is an ancient plate boundary (similar to the Appalachians, and much older than the Himalayas), and the Ural boundary certainly is not "narrow."  In that case, however, there are huge historical cultural differences between, for example, western Europe and East Asia.\n\nIn terms of size, Australia is the smallest continent, and Greenland is the largest island.  India is much closer in size to Greenland than to Australia.  (Also compare Madagascar, a large island drifting away from Africa.  The tectonic activity there is similar to India.)\n\nSo on the question of "why isn't it a continent," I'd say size matters a lot -- India isn't big enough -- and I'd say the closest boundary comparison is between the Himalaya barrier and the Urals.  West of the Urals is much, much larger than south of the Himalayas.\n\nCultural comparisons matter too, and by this measure, India could be considered a continent in its own right.  The Indian population is significantly different than the neighboring Oriental and Caucasian peoples.\n\nWhen you balance all this stuff, I guess you say Europe is its own continent -- it's big and culturally differentiable; but India is not a continent because it's not big enough.\n\nThe other part of the question is, why is it a subcontinent?  There, the Himalayas and, to a lesser extent, the Indian Plate, make a big difference.  Because of the mountains, India is geograpically separated from the rest of Asia.\n\nIt's also a large peninsula.  In this regard, we must compare with the Arabian Peninsula (which sits on the Arabian Plate), and maybe with Asia Minor, the boundary of which (by looking at a globe) may be said to extend from the Persion Gulf to the eastern end of the Black Sea, thus comprising a large area encompassing Turkey, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.  The other obvious large peninsula is Western Europe itself, bounded on the east by a line extending from the Black Sea to the Baltic.\n\nBut neither of those peninsulas have the Himalaya Mountain barrier.\n\nSo putting that altogether, I guess that's why India is a subcontinent and not a continent.  And since it seems to be the only generally recognized subcontinent in the world, that makes it pretty unique.
557190
Africa! It has many more countries!\n\nP.S. No offense, but you spelt continent and countries wrong.
24204
There are Five oceans: Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Glacial Artic Ocean, Glacial Antartic Ocean, Indian Ocean ...
98865
It was once thought that land on earth is stationary and that the continents had always been their current shape, even though they may have been covered by more water.\n\nMore recently however, it has been discovered that the continents were actually all one mass of land and at one point separated, floating apart on sheets of plate tectonics.  \n\nProof came quickly.  It is now easy to see the east coast of South America fitting into west Africa for instance.  Bones of related land-dwelling creatures were also found on the coastlines of the two distant continents.
475593
There are 7 continents. \nThey are:\n1. Asia\n2. North America\n3. South America\n4. Europe\n5. Africa\n6. Antarctica\n7. Oceania (formerly called australia)
66810
Earth ranges from 7,926 miles to 7900 miles, depending on your location.\n\nThis is approximately 12,756km
359253
There are approximately 1.6 to 1.7 million described species on Earth. Estimates exceed 100 million species, but the difficulty lies in our ability to search for and describe them all (some even estimate there are over 100 million bacteria species alone and that our techniques, and interest, to find them limits such numbers).
401991
Since most geographers consider Australia as its own continent (though some consider it part of a chain of islands known as Indonesia), the real defining limit on what is considered an island can be found with the earth's largest; Greenland is considered the planet's largest island, therefore if it is larger than Greenland, it is a continent.\n\nAlso, if the theory of continental drift is true (and it more than likely is), several of our modern continents, like South America, Africa, and North America, that are connected to others at the present date were once surrounded at all sides by water. Geologists still consider their past forms as continents, so I suppose their opinions could be accepted as experts'.\n\nAlso, according to continental drift, the modern country of India was once its own island that broke free from Antarctica about 120 million years ago, headed northward over the course of about 70 million years, and slammed into modern day Asia, forming the Himalayan Mountains. Geologists consider the colliding country a 'sub-continent'. Being only 1.5 times the size of Greenland, the world's largest island, and considered a sub-continent implies that this is where the state of being anything other than an island begins and being an island ends.
375320
a) Earth's surface is made up of about a dozen enormous slabs, or plates. The slow movement of these plates across the surface is called continental drift, or plate tectonics. \n\nb) the outermost level of the land or sea; "earthquakes originate far below the surface"; "three quarters of the Earth's surface is covered by water" \n\nc) Is a kind of layer  (a relatively thin sheetlike expanse or region lying over or under another )
824767
Approximately 61%\n\n#1 Asia - (3,879,000,000)\n#2 Africa - (877,500,000)\n#3 Europe - (727,000,000)\n#4 North America - (501,500,000)\n#5 South America - (379,500,000)\n#6 Australia/Oceania - (32,000,000)\n#7 Antarctica - (0)
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
338705
The total surface are of the Earth is 510,065,284.702 km² or 51,006,528,500 hectares.  The land surface area is 148,939,063.133 km² or 14,893,906,300 hectares