paragraph_text: Africa is the world's second largest and second most - populous continent (behind Asia in both categories). At about 30.3 million km (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20% of its land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the world's human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos. It contains 54 fully recognised sovereign states (countries), nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition. The majority of the continent and its countries are in the Northern Hemisphere, with a substantial portion and number of countries in the Southern Hemisphere.

paragraph_text: Argentinosaurus (meaning "Argentine lizard") is a genus of titanosaur sauropod dinosaur first discovered by Guillermo Heredia in Argentina. The generic name refers to the country in which it was discovered. The dinosaur lived on the then-island continent of South America somewhere between 97 and 93.5 million years ago, during the Late Cretaceous Period. It is among the largest known dinosaurs.

paragraph_text: An Antarctic oasis is a large area naturally free of snow and ice in the otherwise ice-covered continent of Antarctica.

paragraph_text: Earlier theories (e.g. by Alfred Wegener and Alexander du Toit) of continental drift postulated that continents ``ploughed ''through the sea. The idea that the seafloor itself moves (and also carries the continents with it) as it expands from a central axis was proposed by Harry Hess from Princeton University in the 1960s. The theory is well accepted now, and the phenomenon is known to be caused by convection currents in the asthenosphere, which is ductile, or plastic, and the brittle lithosphere (crust and upper mantle).

paragraph_text: The world's longest above - water mountain range is the Andes, about 7,000 km (4,300 mi) long. The range stretches from north to south through seven countries in South America, along the west coast of the continent: Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. Aconcagua is the highest peak, at about 6,962 m (22,841 ft).

paragraph_text: Brazil is the largest country in South America, encompassing around half of the continent's land area and population. The remaining countries and territories are divided among three regions: The Andean States, the Guianas and the Southern Cone.

paragraph_text: Emilio Marcos Palma (born 7 January 1978) is an Argentine man known for being the first documented person born on the continent of Antarctica.

paragraph_text: Rank Range Continent Country Approx. length Approx. width Max. elevation Highest point Andes South America Argentina Bolivia Chile Colombia Ecuador Peru Venezuela 32 ° S 70 ° W ﻿ / ﻿ 32 ° S 70 ° W ﻿ / - 32; - 70 7,000 km (4,350 mi) 500 km (300 mi) 6,962 m (22,841 ft) Mount Aconcagua Southern Great Escarpment Africa Zimbabwe South Africa Swaziland Lesotho Namibia Angola 29 ° S 29 ° E ﻿ / ﻿ 29 ° S 29 ° E ﻿ / - 29; 29 5,000 km (3,100 mi) 300 km (190 mi) 3,482 m (11,424 ft) Thabana Ntlenyana Rocky Mountains North America Canada United States 39 ° N 106 ° W ﻿ / ﻿ 39 ° N 106 ° W ﻿ / 39; - 106 4,800 km (3,000 mi) 300 km (190 mi) 4,401 m (14,440 ft) Mount Elbert Transantarctic Mountains Antarctica Antarctica 84 ° S 166 ° E ﻿ / ﻿ 84 ° S 166 ° E ﻿ / - 84; 166 3,542 km (2,200 mi) 400 km (250 mi) 4,528 m (14,856 ft) Mount Kirkpatrick 5 Great Dividing Range Australia Australia 36 ° S 148 ° E ﻿ / ﻿ 36 ° S 148 ° E ﻿ / - 36; 148 3,500 km (2,175 mi) 300 km (190 mi) 2,228 m (7,310 ft) Mount Kosciuszko 6 Himalayas Asia Pakistan China Bhutan India Nepal Afghanistan Myanmar 27 ° N 86 ° E ﻿ / ﻿ 27 ° N 86 ° E ﻿ / 27; 86 2,576 km (1,600 mi) 350 km (220 mi) 8,848 m (29,029 ft) Mount Everest

paragraph_text: The Continent Makers is a science fiction novella by American writers L. Sprague de Camp, part of his "Viagens Interplanetarias" series. It was first published in the magazine "Thrilling Wonder Stories" in the issue for April, 1951. It first appeared in book form in the collection "The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens", published in hardcover by Twayne Publishers in 1953, and in paperback by Signet Books in 1971. It has also been translated into Portuguese, Dutch, and Italian.

paragraph_text: Atlantis Rising is a concept album released by heavy metal band Manilla Road in 2001. Its content revolves around the lost continent of Atlantis re-emerging and the resulting war between the Æsir and Great Old Ones over the continent.

paragraph_text: A continent is one of several very large landmasses on Earth. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in size to smallest, they are: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.

paragraph_text: Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Antarctica is considered a desert, with annual precipitation of only 200 mm (8 in) along the coast and far less inland. The temperature in Antarctica has reached −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F), though the average for the third quarter (the coldest part of the year) is −63 °C (−81 °F). There are no permanent human residents, but anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at the research stations scattered across the continent. Organisms native to Antarctica include many types of algae, bacteria, fungi, plants, protista, and certain animals, such as mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades. Vegetation, where it occurs, is tundra.

paragraph_text: Continental drift is the movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other, thus appearing to ``drift ''across the ocean bed. The speculation that continents might have 'drifted' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596. The concept was independently and more fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912, but his theory was rejected by some for lack of a mechanism (though this was supplied later by Arthur Holmes). The idea of continental drift has been subsumed by the theory of plate tectonics, which explains how the continents move.

paragraph_text: Positioned asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the Antarctic Circle, Antarctica is the southernmost continent and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean; alternatively, it may be considered to be surrounded by the southern Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, or by the southern waters of the World Ocean. It covers more than 14,000,000 km2 (5,400,000 sq mi), making it the fifth-largest continent, about 1.3 times as large as Europe. The coastline measures 17,968 km (11,165 mi) and is mostly characterized by ice formations, as the following table shows:

paragraph_text: Junko Tabei (田部井淳子, Tabei Junko, 22 September 1939 -- 20 October 2016) was a Japanese mountaineer. She was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, and the first woman to ascend all Seven Summits by climbing the highest peak on every continent.

paragraph_text: A continent is one of several very large landmasses of the world. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven regions are commonly regarded as continents. Ordered from largest in size to smallest, they are: Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, Europe, and Australia.

paragraph_text: Earlier theories (e.g. by Alfred Wegener and Alexander du Toit) of continental drift postulated that continents ``ploughed ''through the sea. The idea that the seafloor itself moves (and also carries the continents with it) as it expands from a central axis was proposed by Harry Hess from Princeton University in the 1960s. The theory is well accepted now, and the phenomenon is known to be caused by convection currents in the asthenosphere, which is ductile, or plastic, and the brittle lithosphere.

paragraph_text: The Ordovician Period started at a major extinction event called the Cambrian-Ordovician extinction events some time about 485.4 ± 1.9 Ma. During the Ordovician the southern continents were collected into a single continent called Gondwana. Gondwana started the period in the equatorial latitudes and, as the period progressed, drifted toward the South Pole. Early in the Ordovician the continents Laurentia, Siberia and Baltica were still independent continents (since the break-up of the supercontinent Pannotia earlier), but Baltica began to move toward Laurentia later in the period, causing the Iapetus Ocean to shrink between them. Also, Avalonia broke free from Gondwana and began to head north toward Laurentia. The Rheic Ocean was formed as a result of this. By the end of the period, Gondwana had neared or approached the pole and was largely glaciated.

paragraph_text: New Zealand is not part of the continent of Australia, but of the separate, submerged continent of Zealandia. New Zealand and Australia are both part of the Oceanian sub-region known as Australasia, with New Guinea being in Melanesia. The term Oceania is often used to denote the region encompassing the Australian continent and various islands in the Pacific Ocean that are not included in the seven - continent model.

paragraph_text: Africa is the world's second - largest and second-most - populous continent (the first being Asia). At about 30.3 million km (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of its total land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the world's human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, both the Suez Canal and the Red Sea along the Sinai Peninsula to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos. It contains 54 fully recognised sovereign states (countries), nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition.

Question: Where does the size of the continent highest in elevation rank among the continents?
Answer: fifth-largest