What is the difference between an island and the continent?

Though Australia gives you a feel that continent and Island could be the same, there are not. An Island is a continental-land that is surrounded by water on all its sides. There are different names depending upon the size of this land and the water body surrounds it. A continent is a large land mass that has specified geographical boundaries and separated by oceans.

Island

An Island is a large piece of sub-continental land which is surrounded by water on all sides. Very small islands formed on emerged lands or atolls are called Islets or Skerries. An island formed in a river or a large lake can be called as Eyot, while the one off the coast is a holm. A geographically related group of islands is called as Archipelago. The Philippines are examples of Archipelago.

A Continent

A Continent is a very large land mass that is separated from other continents in the world by oceans. These continents are separated only by geographical boundaries that limit these land masses to a certain area. The Latin word “continent land” is the origin of the word Continent which means connected or continuous land. These continents are a group of some countries.

While there are many small islands, Greenland is the largest island. The largest continent is Asia while the smallest one is Australia.