There are seven continents
Not wrong, but our understanding became significantly more precise.
TaughtSeven continents: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, South America.
NowA 2017 paper argued that Zealandia, a 4.9-million-square-kilometer landmass 94% submerged around New Zealand, meets every geological test for a continent. It has since been fully mapped, though it is not in most school curricula.
What actually happened
Start with the fact that the count was never universal. Many countries teach six continents, merging Europe and Asia into Eurasia, and much of Latin America and southern Europe teaches six by merging the Americas. The number you learned depends on where you went to school, which should be your first clue that "continent" is a cultural convention as much as a geological category.
Zealandia pushes that further. Nick Mortimer and colleagues argued in GSA Today in 2017 that it satisfies the geological criteria: elevated relative to the ocean floor, distinctive geology, well-defined limits, and crust thicker than typical ocean floor. It is continental crust that happens to be underwater, apart from New Zealand and New Caledonia poking above the surface. Researchers completed mapping it in 2023. Nobody adjudicates this; there is no international body that certifies continents, which is precisely why the seven your teacher listed was always a convention rather than a fact.
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Sources
- GSA Today: Zealandia: Earth's hidden continent (Mortimer et al., 2017)geosociety.org
- Encyclopaedia Britannica: Continentbritannica.com
Who was taught this
Still standard through 2017, so anyone who finished school between 1950 and 2017 learned the earlier version.