Continents By Size report
One of the larger continuous masses of land, the mainland and its nearby islands are collectively called a continent. The world is divided into seven continents. They are like beautiful jigsaw puzzles, combined and cleverly matched to form the earth's continents, namely Asia, Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Oceania, and Antarctica. Europe and Asia are sometimes considered a single continent, Eurasia.
The seven continents vary in size and composition and have their own reasons for their names. Natural geographical objects and manufactured projects mainly mark the boundaries of the continents. The geological characteristics of the seven continents are also very different, but they are all closely related to the movement of the earth's plates.
The seven continents have become the mainland for various activities of human beings. The continents are not distributed evenly over the surface of the globe. If a hemisphere map centered in northwestern Europe is drawn, most of the world's land area can be seen to lie within that hemisphere. More than two-thirds of the earth's land surface lies north of the Equator. It is time to learn the continents' sizes again in order.
Continents By Size
There is significant variation in the sizes of continents; Asia is more than five times as large as Australia. And the continents differ largely in their shapes. Africa has the most regular coastline, consequently, the lowest ratio of coastline to total area. Europe is the most irregular and indented and has the highest ratio of coastline to the entire area. What is the largest continent on Earth? That is easy: Asia. It is the biggest in terms of both size and population. And what about the others? You will find the answer in the below section.

Continents Size Chart
Here are the seven continents of the world ordered by size. What should be clear is that the continents are still active, and their sizes are changing overtimes.
Continent | Square Miles | Square Km | Percent of Total Land Area on Earth |
---|---|---|---|
Asia(including the Middle East) | 17,212,000 Sq. Miles | 44,579,000 Sq. Km | 30.0% |
Africa | 11,608,000 Sq. Miles | 30,065,000 Sq. Km | 20.3% |
North America | 9,365,000 Sq. Miles | 24,256,000 Sq. Km | 16.3% |
South America | 6,880,000 Sq. Miles | 17,819,000 Sq. Km | 12.0% |
Antarctica | 5,100,000 Sq. Miles | 13,209,000 Sq. Km | 8.9% |
Europe | 3,837,000 Sq. Miles | 9,938,000 Sq. Km | 6.7% |
Australia (plus Oceania) | 2,968,000 Sq. Miles | 7,687,000 Sq. Km | 5.2% |
Continents Size by Population
Antarctica has no permanent residents but has 4,000 researchers and personnel in summer and 1,000 in winter.
Continent | Population(2020) | Density (P/Km²) | World Population Share |
---|---|---|---|
Asia | 4,641,054,775 | 150 P/Km² | 59.54% |
Africa | 1,340,598,147 | 45 P/Km² | 17.2% |
Europe | 747,636,026 | 34 P/Km² | 9.59% |
North America | 592,072,212 | 28 P/Km² | 7.60% |
South America | 430,759,766 | 25 P/Km² | 5.53% |
Australia/Oceania | 43,111,704 | 5 P/Km² | 0.55% |
Antarctica | - | - | - |
In addition, there are more than 15 million people who do not live on a single continent. Almost all of these people live in Oceania, the island nation of the world continent, but not the continent. If the six continents of Eurasia were unified into one continent, it would still be the largest one by area and population.