A craton is the stable portion of a continent. These are the parts of the continents that experience little earthquake activity, volcanism, or deformation. The tectonic plates are the sections of the lithosphere that mover around the Earth interacting will each other. In the process of interacting, they cause most earthquakes, volcanism, and crustal deformation along their boundaries. A some tectonic plates contain one or more cratons, but they don't all have them. Additionally, there are no cratons that are plates unto themselves. ************ Grandma Roses wrote, "Thanks for the explanation - can you give me an example or two in North America so I can visualise them?" The North American craton is basically everything from the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains to the western edge of the Appalachian Mountains. (It may even be considered to go all the way to Atlantic, but I am not sure on that.) It also goes all the way from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson Bay. All of this portion of the continent is pretty stable and not experiencing much geologic activity except for those related to such things as weathering and erosion.