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A continent is a geopolitical grouping of landmasses. Unlike in earlier games, continents are not strictly defined as a set of continuous land tiles. Instead, Civilization VI defines continents somewhat arbitrarily even within a large landmass (not unlike Europe and Asia in the real world).

Continents affect certain game mechanics, and an individual tile's continent can be viewed in the associated tooltip. A Continent lens can be used to check continental boundaries. It's possible for a city radius to span across continental boundaries; in this case the City Center tile defines which continent the city belongs to. As a general rule, a civilization's home continent is defined by where its Capital Capital is located, with other continents being foreign continents.

Note that only land tiles are assigned to a continent; sea tiles have their continent listed as "none." Note, however, that islands in large water expanses still belong to a continent, even if they're far from any major landmass. Don't just assume that, just because islands A and B are far from landmass C, they must absolutely belong to a different continent than C.

Gameplay

The following are affected by intercontinental boundaries:

Non-unique effects

Civilization and leader abilities

  • Teddy Roosevelt's Leader Ability Roosevelt Corollary grants +5 Strength Combat Strength to all units on America's home continent.
  • Victoria's Leader Ability Pax Britannica grants a free melee unit upon founding or capturing a city on foreign continents.
  • Phoenicia's unique ability Mediterranean Colonies allows cities it founded on its (current) home continent to remain permanently at full Loyalty.
  • The Spanish unique ability Treasure Fleets grants additional yields for intercontinental Trade Route Trade Route Trade Routes.

Unique infrastructure

Unique units

Agendas

  • Teddy's agenda Big Stick Diplomacy only checks whether wars are being fought on his home continent.
  • Victoria's agenda Sun Never Sets compels her to invade foreign continents, and dislike the civilizations on them.

Related achievements

For Queen and Country
For Queen and Country
Playing as England on a Huge map, have a city on every continent at the start of the turn.
'King and Country' is a phrase that appeared in William Shakespeare's play Henry IV, Part 1. It was later used (and sometimes with 'Queen' in place of 'King') to express loyalty to Britain.
Luftballons
Luftballons
Use a bomber class unit to detonate a nuclear device, as long as its base and 9 Observation Balloons are located on the continent of Nena at the time of detonation.
A reference to '99 Luftballons', an anti-war protest song by German artist Nena.
Voyage of the Mayflower
Voyage of the Mayflower
Found or conquer a city on a different continent
The Mayflower was the ship that transported the first English Separatists, known today as the Pilgrims, from Plymouth to the New World (America) in 1620.

As of April 2020, For Queen and Country has been achieved by 1.7% of players and Luftballons by only 0.3%. Voyage of the Mayflower is, on the other hand, a quite common achievement with 70.4% of players having earned it.

List of Continents names

Continent names are randomly selected from the following list, some of which are based on current or historical continent names on Earth, and the rest hypothetical or even mythical names:

Continent Status Date formed* Description
Africa Current 130 Africa - the birthplace of man, one of the existing to date continents. Africa is the poorest continent and one of the most populated. its population is 1 billion people. Home for Egypt, Kongo, Mali, Nubia, and Zulu. The capital for Arabia is also located here.
Amasia Future 50 Amasia is a proposed future supercontinent that will unite Eurasia and North America. It is predicted to form over the North Pole.
America Current 3 America is part of the world that unites the two continents - North America and South. The two became connected 3 million years ago by the Panama Isthmus and was a continuous landmass until the Panama Canal was built in 1914. The population of both Americas is 953 million people. Four American countries - the US, Brazil, Canada, and Mexico - are among the 20 largest world economies. Home for America, Aztec, Brazil, Canada, Cree, Inca, and Mapuche.
Antarctica Current 150 Antarctica is the least populous continent of the planet with no permanent human settlements. By land area, it is larger than both Europe and Australia. It is governed by the parties to the Antarctic Treaty system which prohibits military and mining activities and promotes scientific research.
Arctica Former 2560 An ancient continent from the Neoarchean era. It formed at the North Pole from various cratons now located in Canada, Siberia, and Greenland. Around 1.5 billion years ago (Gya) it merged with East Antarctica and Baltica to form Nena.
Asia Current 13 Asia is the largest continent in the 7 continent model, covering 30% of the Earth's surface. The formation of Asia has a long and complex history, with formation beginning as far back as 4 billion years ago (Gya) and continuing into the current day as new land is added from the accretion of islands in the south east. Asia reached its current recognizable form during the Cenozoic era when it was joined by the Indian (40 mya) and Arabic (13 mya) cratons. Asia is home to over 4 billion people making it the most populous continent; 60% reside in either China or India. Eight Asian countries - China, Japan, India, South Korea, Russia, Indonesia, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia - are among the 20 largest world economies. Home for Arabia, China, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Khmer, Korea, Mongolia, the Ottomans, Persia, Phoenicia, Russia, Scythia, and Sumeria.
Asiamerica Former 80 Asiamerica is a supercontinent connecting modern China, Canada and the United States. It existed in the late Cretaceous and early Paleogene periods.
Atlantica Former ~2110 Atlantica was one of the first supercontinents. It formed 2 billion years ago and was located where the Southern Atlantic Ocean is today. It was composed of what is now West Africa, Congo, and Brazil.
Atlantis Mythical 590 BC (earliest records) A mythological island home to the Atlantean civilization. In Plato's original story, Athens repelled a seige from the Atlanteans who at that point had conquered the rest of the known world. Atlantis then lost favor with the gods, who destroyed the island in a flood causing their empire to collapse.
Australia Current 80 Australia is the smallest continent on the planet, consisting primarily of the Australian mainland, Tasmania, and the island of New Guinea. It is sometimes known as Sahul, the name given to its continental shelf. It has a population of 38 million people. It's territory belongs to the fewest states of any continent, being home to Australia (country), Papua New Guinea, and 2 Indonesian provinces; Antarctica has territorial claims from 7 countries. Australia (country) is the 13th largest economy in the world and Indonesia is the 16th. Papua New Guinea is one of the most culturally diverse and most rural nations in the world and is home to 851 known languages. "Known" is key, as this figure does not account for languages spoken by the many of the uncontacted peoples of New Guinea. Home to Australia. Core provinces of Indonesia are located on New Guinea.
Avalonia Former 730 Avalonia is a small continent that existed in the Paleozoic.
Azania Obsolete 1st century AD Azania was a name used by Greco-Roman sources such as Pliny the Elder to refer to an indefinite area in southeastern Africa, sometimes as far north as Eritrea. Today, the term is used by some Pan-African nationalists in South Africa as an alternative to the current name imposed by colonizers.
Baltica Former 2500 Baltica is a small continent in today's Russian (East European) plain.
Cimmeria Former 200 Cimmeria was a long Paleozoic microcontinent whose remnants now form the "Alpide belt", a massive group of mountain ranges that stretch from the Pyrenees and Atlas ranges near the Mediterranean, all the way to the Arakan and the seismically active Barisan of Southeast Asia. Named for the region of Crimea (known in ancient times as Cimmeria), which was the first place hard evidence of this continent's existence was discovered.
Columbia Former 1800 Columbia is a supercontinent that existed even in Proterozoic. Interestingly, all modern continents were "mixed" in it: India was next to the state of New York, and Australia was near Vancouver.
Congo Craton Region While never an independent continent, the Congo Craton has been a stable tectonic subdivision of Africa and previous continents for billions of years.
Euramerica Former 350 Euramerica - a small continent, which united Canada, Scandinavia, Europe and part of Russia.
Eurasia Current 170 Eurasia is the largest continent on the planet, the most inhabited continent on the planet (5/7 of the world population) and the birthplace of the first civilizations. See Europe. See Asia
Europe Current 160 Europe is part of the world, making 1/4 of the Asian continent. Only 700 million people live in Europe. Nevertheless, many economies of the world are located in Europe: Russia, Germany, France, Turkey, Greece, Spain, Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland ... 150 million years ago it was the mainland, until it merged with Asia again. Home for England, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Rome, Greece, Macedonia, Russia, Poland.
Gondwana Former 550 Gondwana was a supercontinent consisting of modern Australia, Antarctica, Africa, South America, and the Indian subcontinent. It began to break into its modern components over 155 million years ago in the Jurassic.
Kalaharia Region
Kazakhstania Region
Kernorland Former
Kumari Kandam Mythical
Laurasia Former
Laurentia Region A large continental craton that forms the core of modern North America east of the Rocky Mountains.
Lemuria Obsolete
Mu Obsolete
Nena Former 1900
North America Current
Novopangaea Future
Nuna Former A synonym for the supercontinent of Columbia.
Pangea Former
Pangea Ultima Future
Pannotia Former
Rodinia Former
Siberia Region
South America Current
Ur Former 3100 A hypothetical "supercontinent" (smaller than any current continent) that, if proven to exist, would have been the first continent in Earth's history.
Vaalbara Former
Vendian N/A
Zealandia Current 85-60 A section of continental crust located at modern day New Zealand which became mostly submerged after it broke away from the Australian continent. While it is more than half the size of Australia, 93% of it's land mass remains underwater. Home for Māori.

*in millions of years ago unless otherwise specified

Civilization VI [edit]
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