Continental landmasses: Afro-Eurasia, Antarctica, the Americas, Australia

[billybobbyjoe]

As I’m sure people are aware, there is no real consensus on how many continents there are across both the OSM and international community. What I was wondering, as a new mapper, is why Antarctica, Afro-Eurasia and America are not mapped as landmasses while Australia is? Outside of OSM, there is clear consensus that these are Earth’s four major landmasses; that is, a continuous expanse of land surrounded on all sides by natural water.

[Minh_Nguyen (Minh Nguyễn)]

This isn’t exactly an answer to your question, but there was a recent discussion about America that you might be interested in:

America. A continent with 3 subdivisions (South, Center/Caribbean and North) or 2 continents (North and South) where Panama is part of North America?

I just came face to face with Wikipedia when consulting about America in English Wikipedia and Spanish Wikipedia, Questionable differences where the only thing that was made clear is that there are two different points of view derived from different educational systems. If I ask an English speaker about America, they tell me that they are two continents where Central America is a minor subregion of North America, which is equivalent to saying that Panama is part of North America. If I ask a Sp…

[Mateusz_Konieczny]

see also Tag:place=continent - OpenStreetMap Wiki

(in general these place=continent nodes probably should not exist at all, but few nodes are not cluttering much and are not worth discussion effort to remove them)

[PHerison]

See also:

How many continents are there?

[alan_gr (Alan)]

@billybobbyjoe

why Antarctica, Afro-Eurasia and America are not mapped as landmasses while Australia is?

Perhaps I’m missing something obvious, but what do you mean by “mapped as landmasses”? E.g. what difference do you see between Antartica and Australia in current OSM mapping?

[Duja]

@Mateusz_Konieczny

but few nodes are not cluttering much and are not worth discussion effort to remove them

Please do not underestimate the community. No matter how large a discussion effort on a most trivial matter could be, we are capable of excelling in it. Continents are surely a more important matter than abandoned railways, aren’t they?

[aighes (Henning)]

Obviously we should also consider the proper order of languages, the name-tag should have

[woodpeck (Frederik Ramm)]

I’m not sure but if anyone here is contemplating creating relations that combine all the bits of coastline that make up these continents, that would be a very bad idea. Don’t do it. You’ll create massive relations that receive a new version every time someone splits a bit of coastline somewhere. We have our “coastline” process for a reason and it works well.