Monday, April 4, 2011

AMERICA CONTINENT

e Americas, or America,[1][2] (Spanish: América, Portuguese: América, French: Amérique, Quechua: Amirika, Guaraní: Amérika, Aymara: Amërika, Dutch: Amerika)[3] are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions while the singular form America is primarily used to refer to the United States of America.[2][4][5] The Americas cover 8.3% of the Earth's total surface area (28.4% of its land area) and contain about 13.5% of the human population (about 900 million people).Contents [hide]
1 History
1.1 Settlement
1.2 Pre-Columbian era
1.3 European colonization of the Americas
1.4 Etymology and naming
2 Geology
3 Geography
3.1 Extent
3.2 Topography
3.3 Hydrology
4 Demography
4.1 Population
4.2 Largest urban centers
4.3 Ethnology
4.4 Religion
4.5 Languages
5 Terminology
5.1 America/Americas
5.2 American
5.2.1 English usage
5.2.2 Spanish usage
5.2.3 Portuguese usage
5.2.4 French usage
5.2.5 Dutch usage
5.2.6 Russian usage
6 Countries and territories
6.1 Sovereign states
6.2 Overseas regions, dependencies, colonies
7 Multinational organizations in the Americas
8 See also
9 Footnotes
10 References
11 External links

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History

CIA political map of the Americas in an equal-area projection
Main article: History of the Americas
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Settlement
For more details on theories of Paleo-Indian migration, see Models of migration to the New World.

The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the exact dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion.[6] The traditional theory has been that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska around 40,000–17,000 years ago,[7] when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciation.[6][8] These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets.[9] Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific Northwest coast to South America.[10] Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea level rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age.[11]

Archaeologists contend that Paleo-Indians migration out of Beringia (eastern Alaska), ranges somewhere between 40,000 and 16,500 years ago.[12][13][14] The few agreements achieved to date are the origin from Central Asia, with widespread habitation of the Americas during the end of the last glacial period, or more specifically what is known as the late glacial maximum, around 16,000–13,000 years before present.[14][15]

The Inuit migrated into the Arctic section of North America in another wave of migration, arriving around 1000 CE.[16] Around the same time as the Inuit migrated into North America, Viking settlers began arriving in Greenland in 982 and Vinland shortly thereafter, establishing a settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, near the northernmost tip of Newfoundland.[17] The Viking settlers quickly abandoned Vinland, and disappeared from Greenland by 1500.[18]
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Pre-Columbian era
Main article: Pre-Columbian era

Mississippian site in Arkansas, Parkin Site, circa 1539. Illustration by Herb Roe.

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the Early Modern period.

Pre-Columbian is used especially often in the context of the great indigenous civilizations of the Americas, such as those of Mesoamerica (the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacano, the Zapotec, the Mixtec, the Aztec, and the Maya) and the Andes (Inca, Moche, Muisca, Cañaris).

Many pre-Columbian civilizations established characteristics and hallmarks which included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first permanent European arrivals (c. late 15th–early 16th centuries), and are known only through archaeological investigations. Others were contemporary with this period, and are also known from historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya, had their own written records. However, most Europeans of the time viewed such texts as heretical, and much was destroyed in Christian pyres. Only a few hidden documents remain today, leaving modern historians with glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge.[19]

According to both indigenous American and European accounts and documents, American civilizations at the time of European encounter possessed many impressive accomplishments. For instance, the Aztecs built one of the most impressive cities in the world, Tenochtitlan, the ancient site of Mexico City, with an estimated population of 200,000. American civilizations also displayed impressive accomplishments in astronomy and mathematics.[20]
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European colonization of the Americas
Main article: European colonization of the Americas

Large-scale European colonization of the Americas began shortly after the voyages of Christopher Columbus starting in 1492. The first Spanish settlement on the continent was Panama City on the Pacific coast of Central America founded on August 5, 1519. Panama City was the base for the Spanish conquering of South America. The spread of new diseases brought by Europeans and Africans killed many of the inhabitants of North America and South America,[21][22] with a general population crash of Native Americans occurring in the mid-16th century, often well ahead of European contact.[23] Native peoples and European colonizers came into widespread conflict, resulting in what David Stannard has called a genocide of the indigenous populations.[24] Early European immigrants were often part of state-sponsored attempts to found colonies in the Americas. Migration continued as people moved to the Americas fleeing religious persecution or seeking economic opportunities. Millions of individuals were forcibly transported to the Americas as slaves, prisoners or indentured servants.
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Etymology and naming

World map of Waldseemüller, which first named America (in the map over Paraguay), Germany, 1507

The earliest known use of the name America for this landmass dates from April 25, 1507, where it was used for what is now known as South America. It first appears on a small globe map with twelve time zones, together with the largest wall map made to date, both created by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges in France. These were the first maps to show the Americas as a land mass separate from Asia. An accompanying book, Cosmographiae Introductio, anonymous but apparently written by Waldseemüller's collaborator Matthias Ringmann,[25] states, "I do not see what right any one would have to object to calling this part [that is, the South American mainland], after Americus who discovered it and who is a man of intelligence, Amerigen, that is, the Land of Americus, or America: since both Europa and Asia got their names from women". Americus Vespucius is the Latinized version of the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci's name, and America is the feminine form of Americus. Amerigen is explained as Amerigo plus gen, the accusative case of the Greek word for 'earth', and meaning 'land of Amerigo'.[25] (See etymology.) Amerigo itself is an Italian form of the medieval Latin Emericus (see also Saint Emeric of Hungary), which through the German form Heinrich (in English, Henry) derived from the Germanic name Haimirich.[26]

Vespucci was apparently unaware of the use of his name to refer to the new landmass, as Waldseemüller's maps did not reach Spain until a few years after his death.[25] Ringmann may have been misled into crediting Vespucci by the widely published Soderini Letter, a sensationalized version of one of Vespucci's actual letters reporting on the mapping of the South American coast, which glamorized his discoveries and implied that he had recognized that South America was a continent separate from Asia; in fact, it is not known what Vespucci believed on this count, and he may have died believing what Columbus had, that they had reached the East Indies in Asia rather than a new continent.[27] Spain officially refused to accept the name America for two centuries, saying that Columbus should get credit, and Waldseemüller's later maps, after he had ceased collaboration with Ringmann, did not include it; however, usage was established when Gerardus Mercator applied the name to the entire New World in his 1538 world map. Acceptance may have been aided by the "natural poetic counterpart" that the name America made with Asia, Africa, and Europa.[25]

Map of America by Jonghe, c. 1770
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Geology

South America broke off from the west of the supercontinent Gondwanaland around 135 million years ago (Ma), forming its own continent.[28] Starting around 15 Ma, the collision of the Caribbean Plate and the Pacific Plate resulted in the emergence of a series of volcanoes along the border that created a number of islands. The gaps in the archipelago of Central America filled in with material eroded off North America and South America, plus new land created by continued volcanism. By 3 Ma, the continents of North America and South America were linked by the Isthmus of Panama, thereby forming the single landmass of the Americas.[29]
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Geography
Further information: Geography of North America and Geography of South America
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Extent

The northernmost point of the Americas is Kaffeklubben Island, which is the northernmost point of land on Earth.[30] The southernmost point is the islands of Southern Thule, although they are sometimes considered part of Antarctica.[31] The easternmost point is Nordostrundingen. The westernmost point is Attu Island.

The mainland of the Americas is the longest north-to-south landmass on Earth. At its longest, it stretches roughly 14,000 kilometres, (just under 8700 miles) from the Boothia Peninsula in northern Canada to Cape Froward in Chilean Patagonia. The westernmost point of the mainland of the Americas is the end of the Seward Peninsula in Alaska, while Ponta do Seixas in northeastern Brazil forms the mainland's easternmost extremity.[32]
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Topography

Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas, located in Argentina

The western geography of the Americas is dominated by the American cordillera, with the Andes running along the west coast of South America[33] and the Rocky Mountains and other Western Cordillera ranges running along the western side of North America.[34] The 2300 km long (1429 mile long) Appalachian Mountains run along the east coast of North America from Alabama to Newfoundland.[35] North of the Appalachians, the Arctic Cordillera runs along the eastern coast of Canada.[36]

Between its coastal mountain ranges, North America has vast flat areas. The Interior Plains spread over much of the continent with low relief.[37] The Canadian Shield covers almost 5 million km² of North America and is generally quite flat.[38] Similarly, the north-east of South America is covered by the flat Amazon Basin.[39] The Brazilian Highlands on the east coast are fairly smooth but show some variations in landform, while further south the Gran Chaco and Pampas are broad lowlands.[40]
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Hydrology

With coastal mountains and interior plains, the Americas have several large river basins that drain the continents. The largest river basin in South America is that of the Amazon, which has the highest volume flow of any river on Earth.[41] The largest river basin in North America is that of the Mississippi, covering the second largest watershed on the planet.[42] The second largest watershed of South America is that of the Paraná River, which covers about 2.5 million km².[43]
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Demography
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Population
Further information: List of sovereign states and dependent territories in the Americas by population
Mexico City, Mexico

New York City, United States

São Paulo, Brazil


The total population of the Americas is about 859,000,000 people and is divided as follows:[citation needed]
North America: 2001 with 495 million and in 2002 with 501 million (includes Central America and the Caribbean)
South America: 2001 with 352 million and in 2002 with 357 million
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Largest urban centers
See also: Largest cities in the Americas and List of metropolitan areas in the Americas by population

The most populous cities in the Americas are Mexico City, capital of Mexico; New York City, located on the east coast of the United States of America; and São Paulo, capital of the Brazilian state of the same name. Which of these urban centers is considered the most populous depends on the criteria used in determining their populations.City Country Metropolitan Area Rank City Proper Rank
Mexico City Mexico 20,450,000[44] 1st 8,841,916[45] 2nd
New York City United States 19,750,000[44] 2nd 8,363,710[46] 3rd
São Paulo Brazil 18,850,000[44] 3rd 11,244,369[47] 1st

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Ethnology

The population of the Americas is made up of the descendants of seven large ethnic groups and their combinations.
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas, being Amerindians, Inuit, and Aleuts.
Those of European ancestry, mainly Spanish, British, Irish, Italian, Portuguese, French, Polish, German, Dutch, and Scandinavians.
Mestizos, those of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry.
Those of Black African ancestry, mainly of West African descent.
Mulattoes, people of mixed Black African and European ancestry.
Zambos (Spanish) or Cafusos (Portuguese), those of mixed Black African and Amerindian ancestry.
Asians, that is, those of Eastern, South, and Southeast Asian ancestry.
Those from the Middle East (Middle Easterners).

The majority of the population live in Latin America, named for its predominant cultures whose roots lie in Latin Europe (including the two dominant languages, Spanish and Portuguese, both neolatin), more specifically in the Iberian nations of Portugal and Spain (hence the use of the term Ibero-America as a synonym). Latin America is typically contrasted with Anglo-America (where English, a Germanic language, is prevalent) which comprises Canada (with the exception of francophone Canada rooted in Latin Europe (France): see Québec and Acadia) and the United States. Both are located in North America and present predominantly Anglo-Saxon and Germanic roots.
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Religion

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