The 7 Continents of the World
Every continent sized against the others, with land area, population, country count and the highest and lowest point on each. Tap a card for the full profile, or use the map chips to isolate one.
Africa
The second largest and second most populous continent, straddling the equator so evenly that it reaches almost equally far into both hemispheres. It holds the longest river, the largest hot desert and the oldest human fossils yet found.
โฒ Highest: Kilimanjaro, 5,895 m
โผ Lowest: Lake Assal, โ155 m
Asia
The largest continent by both area and population, carrying roughly six in every ten people alive. It contains the highest and lowest points on land, and every major religion began somewhere inside it.
โฒ Highest: Mount Everest, 8,849 m
โผ Lowest: Dead Sea shore, โ430 m
Europe
A peninsula of peninsulas at the western end of Eurasia, small in area but dense with coastline, borders and languages. No point in Europe is much more than 500 km from the sea.
โฒ Highest: Mount Elbrus, 5,642 m
โผ Lowest: Caspian Sea shore, โ28 m
North America
Stretching from the Arctic ice to the Panama isthmus, this continent packs boreal forest, prairie, desert and rainforest into a single north-south sweep - and holds the largest freshwater system on Earth.
โฒ Highest: Denali, 6,190 m
โผ Lowest: Badwater Basin, โ86 m
South America
Defined by two extremes running side by side: the Andes, the longest mountain range on the planet, and the Amazon, the largest river by volume and the largest rainforest anywhere.
โฒ Highest: Aconcagua, 6,961 m
โผ Lowest: Laguna del Carbรณn, โ105 m
Oceania
Mostly ocean: a continent-sized landmass in Australia plus tens of thousands of islands scattered across a third of the Earth's surface, home to species found nowhere else.
โฒ Highest: Puncak Jaya, 4,884 m
โผ Lowest: Lake Eyre, โ15 m
Antarctica
A desert of ice with no permanent residents and no government - only research stations under a treaty that reserves the whole continent for science.
โฒ Highest: Mount Vinson, 4,892 m
โผ Lowest: Bentley Subglacial Trench, โ2,540 m