Is Australia a country and a continent?
Australia is either an island or a continent not both. It depends if you are considering it from a geographical or geological point of view. Geographically it only includes the Australian mainland therefore Australia is a continent, not an island. As a landform, it could be considered an island as it is entirely surrounded by water and not joined onto any other land mass. For this reason, it is often referred to as an island continent. Australia is too big to be FORMALLY classified as an island. The world’s largest island is actually Greenland. If Australia is to be considered as an island then Antarctica would be as well making Australia the second largest island in the world. Geologically it includes the entire continental shelf. A lot of different names have been used to describe the Australian continent: Australasia, Greater Australia, Sahul, Meganesia, Australinea and Australia-New Guinea New Zealand is not on the same continental shelf and so is not part of the continent of Austr
