How many continents are there in the world?

Word of the day: "Combien?:" How many?

Apparently geography is not universal. I'm not sure how we came across this discussion, but I was speaking with some French friends and we figured out we have different ideas about the number of continents in the world. The French think there are only FIVE continents! What?!?! I asked my Italian and Moroccan friends and they also either said 5 or 6...who is correct? I don't know, but I had no idea there were varying ideas of how many continents...I thought that was concrete! There were so varying answers from my friends:

1. America

2. Africa

3. Oceania (Australia and Antarctica included)

4. Asia

5. Europe

or, some said:

1. America

2. Africa

3. Eurasia

4. Australia

5. Antarctica

Hmmm...according to my elementary geography lessons, there are SEVEN continents. I jokingly told someone that it is 7 and they said, "Why?" and I said, "Because Americans say so and we are always right!" haha.

After conducting further research, I found out (via Wikipedia), that the five olympic rings were based on the five continents--this design was made by a Frenchmen in 1912.

Interesting!