Term meaning "all lands," coined by Alfred Wegener, the inventor of the continental drift theory (antecedant to plate tectonics). All of the continents were formed by the breakup, before which there was also one giant sea, Panthalassa. Pangaea started to break up about 200 million years ago, and is still (very slowly) breaking apart today. The fracture is commonly called the Atlantic Ocean.
Now thought to be made from the fragments of an even older supercontinent, Rodinia.