What is the Largest Continent in the World
The landmasses of Earth are generally broken up into 7 regions, called continents. These are named Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia (sometimes called Australasia or Oceania) and Antarctica. If you have ever wondered which of these is the largest continent in area or population, keep reading to find out.
Largest continent by area
The largest continent by area is Asia, which has a total area of 43,820,000 km2 (16,920,000 sq mi.). Asia makes up almost 30% of the entire landmass of Earth and about 9% of the entire surface area of Earth. It is over 13,000,000 km2 larger than Africa, which is the 2nd largest continent. The 3rd largest continent is North America and this is followed by South America, Antarctica, Europe and Australia.
Largest continent by population
It is now estimated that over 7 billion people call Earth home. The largest percentage of these people are located in Asia, which has an estimated population of 4.1 billion people. This means that the continent of Asia has about 60% of the entire population of Earth. The second largest continent by population is Africa with about 1 billion people. The 3rd largest continent by population is Europe, followed by North America, South America, Australia and Antarctica.
Did you know?
There are 48 countries in Asia, but just 2 of these countries make up over half of the entire population of the continent. China has an estimated population of 1.3 billion people and India has a population of approximately 1.1 billion.
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