Why is India referred to as a subcontinent when by all known criteria it is a continent by itself?

Question

Refer to Indian and Eurasian landplates as shown at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_subcontinent .

Answer 1

Matter of convenience. It is considered a cultural part of Asia. You are technically correct, but it is up to you to change the common usage, here.

Answer 2

Geographically, India is seperated from other parts of Asia - 1. Himalays in the North, protects India from the cold Siberian winds, many rivers originated from the himalayas which served great importance to the people and also because of these rivers many civilization emerges like the harappan civilization - Indus river., many religions came into being from the river banks like jainism.
2. Arabian Sea in the West
3. Bay of Bengal in the East
4. Indian ocean in the south
Besides these geographical entities, there has been many cultural interations between the original inhabitants and other ethnic groups, namely: Aryans, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Afghans, Mongols, Arabs, Hunas and the kushanas. Indians has no particular race because of the interactions from centuries, they dont have a common colour because of this very reason.
"Unity in diversity" is what India can be defined as.
From all these, I conclude that India is rightly called a sub continent.

Answer 3

India is not a continent by itself it is part of the large continent of Asia. India is part of the sub continent of South Asia (also know as the Indian Sub Continent. India is a large landmass, that is part of a continent but is considered either geographically or politically as an independent entity. The reference you have provided shows exactly that.

Answer 4

I think, if you look at the wikipedia article on Asia, it's because in ancient Europe and Asia, they had Europe, Asia, and Africa as the three continents, as they discovered more about the globe, they named new continents accordingly. So, India wasn't excluded from being a continent by any geographic merit, but rather because that's how it's always been.

Answer 5

India is not a continent by itself. The land mass is comprised of several countries, thus it is a subcontinent. Just as Canada and the US are subcontinents of North America.

Answer 6

Although India is rather large it is still connected to the main Asian land mass. While tetonic plates are separated you could use that fact to say part of California is an island.

Answer 7

See this article on subcontinents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subcontinent

Answer 8

It's part of the Asian continent

Answer 9

not a cont by itself...