Bob Terwilliger wrote:
> Michel wrote:
>
>> North America is not an island, it is a continent,
>> the same way Australia in a continent, and Tasmania is an island.
>
> Australia is the world's smallest continent. I've seen it referred to as
> "Asia's appendix".

Until the Panama canal you could walk between North and South America so
it is really one big land mass not two continents. Until the Suez
canal you could walk from Eurasia to Africa so it is really one huge
land mass not three continents. The division between Europe and Asia is
far more arbitrary than either of those ismuses.

And there's always the joke for people who's minds can't do geometry -
Because of how they look on the Mercator cyclindrical projection map
Greenland is bigger than Australia. ;^) I remember joking with an
elementary school teacher about that and I actually had to bring in a
globe map to explain how it worked.