Continent with other islands in the Pacific into one continent called Oceania. This divides the entire land surface of Earth into continents or quasi-continents. The ideal criterion that each continent is a discrete landmass is commonly relaxed due to historical conventions. Of the seven most globally recognized continents, only Antarctica and Australia are completely separated from other continents by the ocean. Several continents are defined not as absolutely distinct bodies but as ""more or less" discrete masses of land". Asia and Africa are joined by the Isthmus of Suez, and North and South America by the Isthmus of Panama. In both
Continent the "continents" (or mainlands) of Isle of Man, Ireland and Wales and in 1745 to Sumatra. The word "continent" was used in translating Greek and Latin writings about the three "parts" of the world, although in the original languages no word of exactly the same meaning as "continent" was used. While "continent" was used on the one hand for relatively small areas of continuous land, on the other hand geographers again raised Herodotus's query about why a single large landmass should be divided into separate continents. In the mid-17th century, Peter Heylin wrote in his "Cosmographie" that "A Continent is