What continent is New Zealand in?

[snaykz]

What continent is New Zealand in?

[Pickle]

Australasia

[Moog]

The play in the Oceania qualifying group for the football world cup!

[Quizmonster]

The problem is that neither of the two answers above is truly a 'continent', except for the convenience of providing named geographic areas for sporting competitions. A continent is defined - by The Oxford English Dictionary (the 'bible' of words) - as "one of the main continuous bodies of land on the earth's surface." If there's one thing half a million scattered islands ain't it's 'continuous'! The dictionary goes on to list Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Australia and Antarctica as the continents.

Australasia and Oceania are conveniences, not continents.

[StevieBoy]

oooh you pedant QM. Generally pickle you are right. Kiwis would consider themselves Australasian.

[snaykz]

I thought it might have been Australasia, but I thought that this would more accurately be described as Australia, coupled with part of Asia, just like Eurasia is made up partly of Europe and partly of Asia so therefore cannot be a continent in its own right can it? I thought of Oceania as well. This would make more sense to me, a unique name for that part of the world (which sounds cool as well). But I've only heard that name used in a football context. I was always led to believe that every country was in (or should that be on?) a continent, but Quizmonster's comments seem to contradict this. Have I interpreted that correctly QM?

[Quizmonster]

The OED is a work of massive erudition rather than pedantry, Stevie. I'm always happy to go with what it has to say about the English language. I'm sure some New Zealanders are perfectly happy to be called 'Australasians', but I imagine they do so on the same basis as that on which the OED defines the word...namely, that Australasia is a name (quote) "used to include Australia and its adjoining islands". I'm afraid it remains not a continent, however. Cheers

[Quizmonster]

We were obviously typing simultaneously then, Snaykz! Australasia was a name invented by the French in the 1750s, meaning - as I said above - "Australia and its adjoining islands", specifically those in the Indian Ocean south of Asia. Oceania was a name invented by the French in 1840s, meaning the islands of the Pacific and its adjoining seas. The two names are, therefore, quite clearly not even synonymous, strictly-speaking, as many people seem to think.

As for every country being in/on one continent or another, that is not so in terms of physical, geographical fact. It's not that long ago that British people used to say things such as: "We're holidaying on the Continent this year" or "We're travelling through Europe next July." It's pretty clear from that that they just didn't consider Britain to be a part of Europe at all. All of that changed, of course, on our entry into the EEC and subsequently the EU. We are part of Europe now, simply because it is convenient for us to consider ourselves so and because we are descended from European peoples, by and large. In the same way, one hears Americans talking about "the continental USA", to mean the great land-mass alone.

[ozguy]

New Zealand is not part of a continent, just as Hawaii or New Guinea isn't.

Australia is its nearest continent.