(1) A large mass of land rising abruptly from the bottom of the oceanic deep and including marginal regions that are shallowly submerged. (2) One of the land masses identified as continents and named Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. Greenland is sometimes included. There is disagreement over the validity of classifying Europe and Asia as separate continents if a geological basis is wanted for the classification. Modern evidence indicates, however, that at one time the two continents were up to 3000 km apart.