Continents are huge areas of land — Geography, 4–6 years
A continent is a very large area of land that contains countries and many different places.
What is a continent?
A continent is a huge area of land, much bigger than one country or one island. It can contain many countries, cities, mountains, rivers, and homes. The names commonly taught are Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Australia.
Why group land into continents?
The world is too large to talk about one place at a time. Grouping land into continents gives us a useful big picture before we look at individual countries and towns. It helps people describe where a place is, even when it is far away.
Finding Portugal’s continent
Start with Portugal, the country we want to place. Look at a globe or world map and find Portugal beside Spain. Now look at the continent around both countries: it is Europe. So we can say, “Portugal is a country in Europe.”
The common mix-up
A country and a continent are not the same kind of place. It is easy to mix them up because both can have names and appear on the same map. Portugal is a country; Europe is the much larger continent containing Portugal and many other countries.
Continents outside school
You may hear continents named in a news report, on a globe, or when talking about an animal’s home. A story might say that penguins live in Antarctica or that a football team travelled from Europe to Asia. The continent gives a broad location, not one exact address.
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