Geography Atlas
Things this atlas does not know. Each entry is a question that specialists
have posed and not settled, recorded with what would actually resolve it and which
expertise the answer needs.
These are kept deliberately, rather than quietly omitted. An atlas that shows
only what it is sure of implies a confidence it has not earned, and the gaps are often where
the interesting work is. Several sit exactly where two fields fail to meet: identifying the
hyssop of the Hebrew Bible needs a botanist and a philologist of Biblical Hebrew, and neither
one settles it alone.
Grouped by the shape of the gap rather than its subject: what sort of thing is unresolved.
Showing 21 to 25 of 25 open questions, page 2 of 2.
location 1
Recorded as unresolved.
North America
Where does North America end and South America begin: at the Darien Gap on the Panama-Colombia border, or farther north at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico?
Open North America
Why It Is Open The conventional political boundary runs through the Darien Gap on the Panama-Colombia border, which places almost all of Panama within North America. Some geologists instead draw the physiographic line farther north, at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico, treating the rest of Central America as a transitional zone rather than as part of North America proper. The two conventions, political and physiographic, answer different questions and disagree by roughly two thousand kilometers.
What Would Settle It A single agreed convention for whether the continental boundary follows political borders or physiographic features would settle which line applies; no new fact discovery is expected to close this on its own, since both conventions already agree on the underlying geography.
Expertise Needed Physical geography
Question posed in
North America (Wikipedia), Extent and definition section, the Darien Gap versus the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
Not Yet Classified 4
Recorded as unresolved.
Europe
Where does Europe end and Asia begin?
Open Europe
Why It Is Open Europe and Asia form one continuous landmass, Eurasia, with no continuous physical barrier separating them. The conventional line runs along the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Greater Caucasus, the Black Sea and the Turkish straits, but this is a human convention rather than a physical fact, and the modern division reflects East-West cultural, linguistic and ethnic differences that vary on a spectrum rather than falling at a sharp line.
What Would Settle It Nothing in physical geography can resolve this, since the boundary is conventional by construction; what would change the answer is a shift in which convention geographers, national governments and international bodies choose to follow, which has already moved more than once historically.
Question posed in
Europe (Wikipedia), Definition section, boundary description.
Australia
Is Australia alone, or the wider region of Oceania, the seventh continent?
Open Australia
Why It Is Open Geographers use the term Oceania for a region that includes the continent of Australia together with most of the Pacific island countries and territories, and the seven-continent model's own seventh slot is written by some sources as "Australia/Oceania", treating the two labels as interchangeable. Continents themselves are identified by convention rather than by any strict criterion, so whether the seventh continent is the single-nation Australian landmass or the wider multi-nation Oceania region is a live difference in convention, not a factual dispute with a settled answer.
What Would Settle It A single, universally adopted convention for what counts as a continent, which does not currently exist; different countries' school curricula and different atlases already choose differently (a six-continent "Australia/Oceania" model is taught in parts of Europe, a seven-continent model naming Australia alone elsewhere).
Question posed in
Continent (Wikipedia), Area and population section, Oceania definition.
Australia
Is Zealandia, the largely submerged landmass in the southwest Pacific, an eighth continent?
Open Australia
Why It Is Open In 2017 a team of eleven geologists from New Zealand, New Caledonia and Australia concluded that Zealandia, a roughly 4.9 million square kilometre mass of continental crust of which about 94 percent lies underwater, meets every geological criterion for a continent, a case geologist Nick Mortimer argued would have been settled long ago if the crust were not submerged. The idea was first proposed by Bruce Luyendyk in 1995. It has been described variously as a submerged continent, a continental fragment and a microcontinent, and has not been adopted as a standard eighth continent in the conventional lists this atlas otherwise follows.
What Would Settle It A shift in the standard continent count that the world's atlases, geography curricula and geological bodies converge on adopting; the underlying geology is not seriously disputed, only whether the classification "continent" is extended to a landmass this submerged.
Question posed in
Zealandia (Wikipedia), Continent classification section.
Sanjay Gandhi National Park
When was Sanjay Gandhi National Park established: 1942, 1969, 1974, 1981 or 1996?
Open Sanjay Gandhi National Park
Why It Is Open Published histories disagree and none read was the Maharashtra Forest Department notification. Krishnagiri National Park is dated 1942 (Bombay National Park Act) by Mumbai Tourism and IndiaGeographies, 1950 by WorldAtlas, 1969 or 1974 for the Borivali name or expansion, 1976 by WorldAtlas, 1981 for the renaming after Sanjay Gandhi by most sources, and 1996 by WorldAtlas and Mumbai Tourism for the same renaming, with IndiaGeographies giving national park status as 1983.
What Would Settle It The Maharashtra Forest Department or Government of India notification text or the park official history page, stating which year each step (Krishnagiri National Park, Borivali National Park, Sanjay Gandhi National Park) took effect, so the page can state one establishment year and the recorded fact can match it.
Question posed in
Sanjay Gandhi National Park (Wikipedia), History section; compared with Mumbai Tourism, WorldAtlas, IndiaGeographies and Explore Maharashtra pages read 2026-10-11.