Continents.

[quackkwak]

Does anyone know how the seven continents got their names?

Comments

[talinthas]

the Americas named for Amerigo Vespucci. Europe after Europa, the goddess. Otherwise, i can't recall.

[surfmadpig]

there was no godess Europa. It is indeed mythological but the story goes like this: Europa was a very beautiful woman and Zeus being the horny god he always was, wanted her. so he transformed into a bull and carried her off to the island of Crete.

more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_%28mythology%29

[badluckcity]

I hope people reply to this; I would like to know as well.

[madcaptenor]

Australia comes from "Terra Incognita Australis", for "Unknown Southern Land", (I might have the declension wrong? I don't actually know Latin) because for a long time it was thought that there had to be some land in the south to balance all the land in the north. And "Arctic" comes from Greek arktos, meaning "bear", referring to the two "bear" constellations which always appear in the north; "Antarctic" and "Antarctica" are just the opposite of this.

[jananaphone]

Aren't they trying to change the name of Australia (continent, not country) to Oceania or something like that?

[boro_babe]

I've heard this too, I know in the football world cup qualifiers the group of teams from Australasia is known as Oceania

[embryomystic]

Well, it is sort of a continent, but it doesn't just include the big island. Oceania's a whole bunch of stuff in the south Pacific. Maybe they changed it and I never noticed beforehand, but it's been that way as long as I've been aware. Occasionally you get people referring to Australia as a continent, but AFAIK Oceania's a decently old idea.

[nekokaze]

Asia was a Greek term to describe Asia Minor. It was likely taken from the name of the Assuwa.

[ini]

Our Geography teacher told us Asia got its name from the Assyrian word aszu which means 'East'. Don’t know if this is correct, though ...

[nekokaze]

Well, there's no doubt that it comes to us through the Greek, and that the Greek originally described Asia Minor (as opposed to Asia Major?), or at least the places of Persian occupation. Some do advance an Assyrian etymology past that. I'm not sure either really has more evidence, but to most Semitic speakers Asia Minor is actually to the West, so there's at least some interesting drift in that version.

[cluebyfour]

Wikipedia has this to say about the origin of "Africa." The Romans appeared to be the first to use the term, but there doesn't seem to be universal agreement on its origins.