Continental Landmasses
Although the continental landmasses listed below are not normally called "islands", they are land entirely surrounded by water (excluding the geologically insignificant Panama and Suez Canals). In effect, they are enormous islands and are shown here for that reason. The figures are approximations and are for the continental mainland only.
| Rank | Landmass | Area (km2) |
Area (sq mi) |
Country or countries |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Afro-Eurasia | 84,400,000 | 32,500,000 | Various |
| 2 | Americas | 42,300,000 | 16,400,000 | Various |
| 3 | Antarctica | 14,000,000 | 5,400,000 | None (various countries have territorial claims) |
| 4 | Australia | 7,600,000 | 2,900,000 | Australia |
Notes:
- Australia is more than three times the size of Greenland, the largest island. Australia is sometimes dubbed "The Island Continent", and sometimes accorded the role of "Earth’s largest island but smallest continent".
- Antarctica is a special case: if its ice is considered not as land, but as water, it is not a single land mass, but several land areas of much smaller area, since the ice-bedrock boundary is below sea level in many regions of the continent. If its ice cover were to be lifted, some rock that is currently below sea level would rise as the weight of the ice would be removed. Still, if the ice cover was melted or moved into the ocean, the effect of sea level rise (several tens of meters) would counteract this.
Read more about this topic: List Of Islands By Area