How did the continents get their names?
Continents are not the unchanging, universally recognized land masses of our elementary school studies. They were discovered by ocean-going explorers, sometimes with multiple people claiming the initial discovery. They were demarcated and named by men for political, often self-serving reasons. And they have shifted and changed shape over time. Our planet looks dramatically different than it did millions of years ago. But the continents as we know them now are an integral part of our geographical understanding of our world. E. Dygas/Riser/Getty Images Continents may be constantly shifting and changing, but to most people, their shapes are as recognizable as faces. As important as geographical boundaries are for national and cultural identity, so do names count in our conception of who we are and where we come from. Imagine the confusion when the country you live in is actually positioned on two different continents, as is the case in more than one instance. This is one of the times when
