I mean, the whole thing is rather arbitrary. I do not see the case for a five-continent model that links the two Americas by a narrow isthmus without counting Africa as part of the Eurasian continent. The Sinai peninsula is surely of the same standing as Panama! The Wikipedia page is fascinating, but it will probably not resolve the dispute.

rikforto:I mean, the whole thing is rather arbitrary. I do not see the case for a five-continent model that links the two Americas by a narrow isthmus without counting Africa as part of the Eurasian continent. The Sinai peninsula is surely of the same standing as Panama! The Wikipedia page is fascinating, but it will probably not resolve the dispute.

I just read the wiki article again and stumbled over this:

From the 1950s, most U.S. geographers divided the Americas into two continents.[64] With the addition of Antarctica, this made the seven-continent model. However, this division of the Americas never appealed to Latin Americans, who saw their region spanning an América as a single landmass, and there the conception of six continents remains, as it does in scattered other countries.[quoteation needed]

I am glad that this paragraph is marked with [quoteation needed], because it is complete balderdash. In American Spanish[1] you generally talk about the Americas (las Américas) in plural and not in singular. One of the main boulevards of my home town is called "Las Américas" and not "La América". If you want to refer to Latin America as one single region, you just say "América Latina", but that is not a continent.

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[1] At lesat in Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua.