Land mass refers to the total surface area of a geographical region or country (which may include discontinuous pieces of land such as islands). It is written as two words to distinguish it from the usage "landmass"—the contiguous area of land surrounded by ocean.
The Earth's total land mass is 148,939,063.133 km2 (57,505,693.767 sq mi) which is about 29.2% of its total surface. Water covers approximately 70.8% of the Earth's surface, mostly in the form of oceans.
Famous quotes containing the words land and/or mass:
“It seems, just now,
To be happening so very fast;
Despite all the land left free
For the first time I feel somehow
That it isn’t going to last....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“Commercial jazz, soap opera, pulp fiction, comic strips, the movies set the images, mannerisms, standards, and aims of the urban masses. In one way or another, everyone is equal before these cultural machines; like technology itself, the mass media are nearly universal in their incidence and appeal. They are a kind of common denominator, a kind of scheme for pre-scheduled, mass emotions.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–62)