Continents (NLWv3)

Continents are the largest landforms and oldest way we conceptualize Earth's landforms. People have used the concept of continents since ancient times. In the early 20th century, the theory of continental drift was formalized based on ideas dating to the first world maps that included the American continents, whose shapes complemented the shapes of Europe and Africa. While Plate Tectonic theory has replaced continental drift to explain the movement of the Earth's land masses, the concept of continents is deeply ingrained in how people explain the context for all land-based locations. This includes politically where we understand countries are located on a given continent. This layer contains a feature for each of the Earth's continents and a generic feature for all non-continental islands. The features in this layer have a geomorphological definition, meaning they are based on groups of tectonic plates, but use the older, familiar, continent names.大洲是地球规模最大的地貌单元，也是人类对地球地表形态进行认知的最古老方式。人类自远古时期便已使用大洲这一概念。20世纪早期，大陆漂移学说（continental drift）正式成型，其理论雏形可追溯至首批绘入美洲大陆的世界地图——美洲大陆的轮廓与欧洲、非洲的轮廓恰好相互契合。尽管板块构造（Plate Tectonic）理论已取代大陆漂移学说，用以解释地球陆地块体的运动，但大洲概念仍深刻根植于人类对所有陆地区域的语境阐释之中，这其中也涵盖了我们对各国所属大洲的政治地理认知。该数据集图层为地球所有大洲分别设置了一项要素，并为所有非大陆岛屿设置了一项通用要素。该图层中的要素以地貌学（geomorphological）为定义依据，即基于板块群划分，但沿用了广为人知的传统大洲名称。