what was the largest island before australia was discovered?

Answer 1

australria was always the biggest island. trick question

Answer 2

Along the same lines as a previous answer, it was still the largest. The people living there had 'discovered' it before Western explorers came along (but perhaps one could argue they were not aware it was an island).

The issue of continent versus island is not so simple. Long after it was discovered (for at least 200 years) it was referred to as an island. So at the time it was discovered by Western travellers it was considered an island, and thus the biggest.

Apart from all those quibbles the answer is Greenland, having been discovered by Vikings (from the Western perspective) a long time before Australia.

Answer 3

Logic problem solvers would most likely tell you that Australia was still the largest island, even before it was discovered. Even though it hadn't been discovered it still existed !!

Geographers would answer slightly differently. They would argue that Australia is classified as a continent, therefore not an island. In the case of the next largest island after Australia, the answer is Greenland. Curiously enough, the next largest island (land mass) is Borneo.

Answer 4

Africa.

If you insist on defining Australia as an "island" , then you must accept that it is an "island continent" and therefore the largest
"island" in the modern world,

Before it was "discovered"? By whom?

Australia was discovered at least 40-140,000 years ago according to the dating methodology used.

Aboriginals who discovered Australia walked there in part from
the narrow bridges that connected the "islands" of the age.

Some went in another direction. Their successors are in the southernmost tip of Latin America.

As the ages changed, so did the land masses. Australia according to one geomorphological source was larger than
that part of Africa that at the time was an island before joinging, drifting middle eastward.

The land masses morphed. "Africa" was no longer an island.

Australia became a continent. Greenland an island.

That's the way I understand it. Prolly all wrong.

,.

Answer 5

You see this is a tricky one, australia apparently is not classed as an island but rather part of a continent, albeit a large part of it. Greenland therefore is the largest.

Antartica is another one, presumably discovered after australia? which again appears to be an island however antartica unlike australia really does constitute the whole of the antartic continent.

Answer 6

Australia is a continent. but before it was discovered it would of still been the largest island because it is still bigger then all the other islands.

Answer 7

Greenland, and Australia, by definition is an island. The continent is Australasia, which includes many of the Pacific and Indian Ocean islands.

Answer 8

People seem to think Australia is a continent by itself.
IT ISNT!!
Australiasia is the continent, which also emcompasses New Zealand, and Australia was always the biggest islands, it didnt need someone to "discover" it.

I hate all this "discovered" business!! Its so patronising to the people who were already there!

Answer 9

Greenland I think. And Australia IS and island -and a continent.

Answer 10

Australia was still the largest island even though it had not been dicovered.

Answer 11

just because something isnt discovered doesnt mean it doesnt exist - so it would still be australia by ur definition of an island