how many continents in the world

There are seven continents commonly recognized in most standard classifications: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania (often called Australia or Australia/Oceania), and South America. This is the most widely taught model in schools and used by many geographic references, though some sources discuss alternative continental counts (ranging from four to six) depending on how landmasses are defined and grouped. If you’d like, I can summarize the different models and their reasoning.