verdensdele

Verdensdele is the term used to describe the Earth's major landmasses that are commonly recognized as continents. In most educational contexts, the traditional model lists seven continents: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Europe, North America, Australia (often labeled as Oceania when including numerous Pacific islands), and South America. The boundaries between these landmasses are culturally and historically defined rather than dictated by geology, which leads to alternative models.

Some traditions combine Europe and Asia into a single landmass called Eurasia, reducing the number of continents to six. Other classifications group the Americas together as a single landmass (the Americas). In recent geological terminology, some scholars refer to Zealandia as a submerged continent, and in Oceanian contexts the term Oceania is used to describe the broader region across the Pacific.

The concept of continents has varied with time and culture. It reflects a combination of geography, history, and political considerations, and as such, there is no single, universally accepted definition. In education, the seven-continent model is widely used, while others adopt six or five-continent schemes. The term verdensdele thus denotes the traditional geographic divisions of the world, subject to the nuances of different cultural perspectives.