Latin America is a collective region of the Americas where Romance languages—languages derived from Latin—are predominantly spoken. The term was coined in France in the mid-19th century to refer to regions in the Americas that were ruled by the Spanish, Portuguese, and French empires.
The term does not have a precise definition, but it is "commonly used to describe South America, Central America, Mexico, and the islands of the Caribbean". In a narrow sense, it refers to Spanish America and Brazil (Portuguese America). The term "Latin America" is broader than Hispanic America, which specifically refers to Spanish-speaking countries, and categories such as Ibero-America, a term that refers to both Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries from the Americas, and sometimes from Europe.
The term Latin America was first used in Paris at a conference in 1856 called "Initiative of America: Idea for a Federal Congress of the Republics" (Iniciativa de la América. Idea de un Congreso Federal de las Repúblicas), by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao. The term was further popularized by French emperor Napoleon III's government of political strongman that in the 1860s as Amérique latine to justify France's military involvement in the Second Mexican Empire and to include French-speaking territories in the Americas, such as French Canada, Haiti, French Louisiana, French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe and the French Antillean Creole Caribbean islands Saint Lucia, and Dominica, in the larger group of countries where Spanish and Portuguese languages prevailed.
The region covers an area that stretches from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego and includes much of the Caribbean. It has an area of approximately 19,197,000 km2 (7,412,000 sq mi), almost 13% of the Earth's land surface area. In 2019, Latin America had a combined nominal GDP of US$5,188,250 trillion and a GDP PPP of US$10,284,588 trillion. (Full article...)
In 1904, the Brazilian legislature allocated substantial funds to improve the country's naval forces. Proponents of this plan believed that they needed a strong navy to become an international power and combat recent naval expansions in Argentina and Chile. The revolutionary design of the 1906 British warship HMS Dreadnought prompted the Brazilians to alter these plans and redirect their money into constructing three Minas Geraes-classdreadnoughts. These warships, the most powerful in the world, entered service at a time when dreadnoughts were an important factor in a nation's international prestige and therefore brought global attention to Brazil. (Full article...)
Red, white, and green are the colors of the national army in Mexico. The central emblem is the Mexican coat of arms, based on the Aztec symbol for Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City), the center of the Aztec Empire. It recalls the legend of an eagle sitting on a cactus while devouring a serpent that signaled to the Aztecs where to found their city, Tenochtitlan. (Full article...)
... that despite an attempted "extermination" of homosexuals in the 1960s and 1970s, the LGBT community in Argentina is now the most accepted in Latin America?
... that the Latin American travesti gender identity has been considered to be a third gender, akin to the hijras of India and the muxe of Mexico?
... that Brazilian computer science researcher and internet pioneer Tadao Takahashi negotiated with drug lords to install internet equipment in his country?
Image 2In blue countries under right-wing governments and in red countries under left-wing and centre-left governments as of 2023 (from History of Latin America)
Image 11Intermediate level international-style Latin dancing at the 2006 MIT ballroom dance competition. A judge stands in the foreground. (from Culture of Latin America)