Subject: Re: [BoundaryPoint] Continent border<br/>
Date: Feb 24, 2003 @ 22:56<br/>
Author: Kevin Meynell (Kevin Meynell &lt;kevin@...&gt;)<br/>
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<div id="ygrps-yiv-895420367"><blockquote><span title="ireply">&gt;One of my favorite newsgroups, alt.usage.english discussed whether Oceania <br/>
&gt;is in fact a continent<br/>
<br/>
 </span></blockquote>It&#39;s absurd to describe Oceania as a continent when it&#39;s clearly a region. <br/>
This is the problem when you try to define physical entities for political <br/>
purposes. Unfortunately, continental divisions are used by some <br/>
international organisations (e.g. ICANN) to ensure &#39;geographical diversity&#39; <br/>
on their committees.<br/>
<br/>
Incidentally, Oceania was always called Australasia when I went to school.<br/>
<br/>
<blockquote><span title="ireply"> &gt;Do the open sea islands are parts of continents?<br/>
<br/>
 </span></blockquote>The UN seems to assign the mid-ocean islands (e.g. St. Helena, French <br/>
Southern Territories) to the nearest continent. It doesn&#39;t make much sense, <br/>
unless you believe that every political entity has to be part of a continent.<br/>
<br/>
Regards,<br/>
<br/>
Kevin Meynell</div>