The most famous mythical continent is Atlantis. Like Hyperborea and Thule, Atlantis is ultimately derived from ancient Greek geographic speculation.
The name of the hypothetical vanished continent Mu originated from the first attempted translation of the Madrid Codex, one of only four remaining Maya codices.
Something similar seems to have happened upon the discovery of the Sanskrit literature by Europeans. Louis Jacolliot claimed to have learned from this literature about a sunken continent called Rutas. This in turn seems to have influenced Madame Blavatsky and her speculations about Lemuria. Speculations about Kumari Kandam also seem to be linked to this field. The name Lemuria originated from the scientific hypothesis about a land bridge between India and South Africa. With the discovery of the continental drift, however, this hypothesis is now considered obsolete.
Other mythical continents include Terra incognita, such as Terra Australis Incognita, which were probably based on garbled accounts from early explorers, but subsequently shown to have a basis in reality, and to be valid after scientific investigation and concept refinement.
Mythical continents are a great theme for fantasy and science fiction writers. Many modern occult or New Age writers speculate about ancient civilizations that dwelled on continents now submerged below sea level. As the study "Lost Continents" by L. Sprague de Camp seeks to show, there is no real scientific evidence for any lost continents in recent history; however, some rather large islands did sink when the sea levels rose after the end of the last interglacial, possibly being the origin of many lost continent legends, and some lost continents are likely to have existed millions of years ago. De Camp himself wrote some fiction stories on this theme.
The landmasses of Tolkien's Middle-earth were greatly detailed; especially mythical is the land of Valinor where the angelic Valar and Maiar along with the Elves lived.
