Chapter 2 Land and Ocean Section 1 Continents and Oceans

Chapter 2 Land and Ocean

Section 1 Continents and Oceans

Earth? A water globe?

As you can see from a globe or a satellite photo of the Earth, the surface of the Earth is clearly divided into land and oceans. The distribution of land and sea constitutes the basic features of the Earth's appearance.

According to calculations, 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans, while only 29% of the land area is covered by land. To summarize, seven percent of the Earth is ocean and three percent is land. As can be seen from the globe, the world's land and sea are very unevenly distributed. Land is mainly concentrated in the northern hemisphere, but the Arctic is surrounded by an ocean; the ocean is mostly distributed in the southern hemisphere, but the Antarctic is surrounded by a piece of land.

Seven continents and four oceans

The global land mass is divided into seven continents, namely Asia, Europe, Africa, North America, South America, Oceania and Antarctica. Among them, Asia is the largest and Oceania is the smallest. Greenland in North America is the largest island in the world in terms of area.

Asia, Europe, Africa and Oceania are mainly distributed in the Eastern Hemisphere, where the Asian continent and the European continent are one, collectively known as Asia and Europe.

The southwestern part of Asia is also connected to the northwestern part of Africa. After the opening of the Suez Canal, the canal became the dividing line between Asia and Africa.

North and South America are mainly located in the Western Hemisphere and are collectively called the Americas. The middle part of the American continent is so narrow that a canal, the Panama Canal, was dug here, and it became the dividing line between North and South America.

Most of Antarctica lies within the Antarctic Circle and is surrounded by oceans. Covered in ice all year round, it is the only uninhabited continent.

The earth's oceans, in order of size, are the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean, with the Pacific Ocean making up almost half of the world's oceans. Seas are the marginal parts of oceans, generally close to the continents and often separated from the oceans by peninsulas or islands.

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