Four continents
16th century division of the world into four continents; Africa, America, Asia and Europe
Europeans in the 16th century divided the world into four continents: Africa, America, Asia, and Europe. Each of the four continents was seen to represent its quadrant of the world—Africa in the south, America in the west, Asia in the east, and Europe in the north. This division fit the Renaissance sensibilities of the time, which also divided the world into four seasons, four classical elements, four cardinal directions, four classical virtues, etc.
The four parts of the world or the four corners of the world refers to Africa (the "south"), America (the "west"), Asia (the "east"), and Europe (the "north").
Depictions of personifications of the four continents became popular in several media. Sets of four could be placed around all sorts of four-sided objects, or in pairs along the façade of a building with a central doorway. They were common subjects for prints, and later small porcelain figures. A set of loose conventions quickly arose as to the iconography of the figures. They were normally female, with Europe queenly and grandly dressed, Asia fully dressed but in an exotic style, with Africa and America at most half-dressed, and given exotic props as attributes.
A three-cornered world
Before the discovery of the New World a commonplace of classical and medieval geography had been the "three parts" in which, from Mediterranean and European perspectives, the world was divided: Europe, Asia and Africa.
“Four continents” enters the record as 16th century division of the world into four continents; Africa, America, Asia and Europe. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Four, continents and 16th can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Four continents” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.