section_path: Definitions and application
section_name: Definitions and application
paragraph_text: Definitions and application
  
  By convention, continents "are understood to be large, continuous, discrete masses of land, ideally separated by expanses of water". In modern schemes with five or more recognized continents, at least one pair of continents is joined by land in some fashion. The criterion "large" leads to arbitrary classification: Greenland, with a surface area of 2,166,086 square kilometres (836,330 sq mi), is only considered the world's largest island, while Australia, at 7,617,930 square kilometres (2,941,300 sq mi), is deemed the smallest continent.
  
  Earth's major landmasses all have coasts on a single, continuous World Ocean, which is divided into several principal oceanic components by the continents and various geographic criteria.