8°51′52″N 80°02′59″W / 8.864488°N 80.049634°W
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The Americas, which are also collectively called America,[4][5][6] are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America.[7][8][9] The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.[4]
Along with their associated islands, the Americas cover 8% of Earth's total surface area and 28.4% of its land area. The topography is dominated by the American Cordillera, a long chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by large river basins, such as the Amazon, St. Lawrence River–Great Lakes basin, Mississippi, and La Plata. Since the Americas extend 14,000 km (8,700 mi) from north to south, the climate and ecology vary widely, from the arctic tundra of Northern Canada, Greenland, and Alaska, to the tropical rain forests in Central America and South America.
Humans first settled the Americas from Asia between 42,000 and 17,000 years ago. A second migration of Na-Dene speakers followed later from Asia. The subsequent migration of the Inuit into the neoarctic around 3500 BCE completed what is generally regarded as the settlement by the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
The first known European settlement in the Americas was by the Norse explorer Leif Erikson.[10] However, the colonization never became permanent and was later abandoned. The Spanish voyages of Christopher Columbus from 1492 to 1504 resulted in permanent contact with European (and subsequently, other Old World) powers, which eventually led to the Columbian exchange and inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, and colonization whose effects and consequences persist to the present. The Spanish presence involved the enslavement of large numbers of the indigenous population of America.[11]
Diseases introduced from Europe and West Africa devastated the indigenous peoples, and the European powers colonized the Americas.[12] Mass emigration from Europe, including large numbers of indentured servants, and importation of African slaves largely replaced the indigenous peoples.
Decolonization of the Americas began with the American Revolution in the 1770s and largely ended with the Spanish–American War in the late 1890s. Currently, almost all of the population of the Americas resides in independent countries; however, the legacy of the colonization and settlement by Europeans is that the Americas share many common cultural traits, most notably Christianity and the use of Indo-European languages: primarily Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, and, to a lesser extent, Dutch.
The Americas are home to nearly a billion inhabitants, two-thirds of whom reside in the United States, Brazil, and Mexico. It is home to eight megacities (metropolitan areas with ten million inhabitants or more): New York City (23.9 million), Metropolitan area of the Valley of Mexico (21.2 million), São Paulo (21.2 million), Los Angeles (18.8 million), Buenos Aires (15.6 million),[13] Rio de Janeiro (13.0 million), Bogotá (10.4 million), and Lima (10.1 million).
Etymology and naming edit
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- ^ "2020 Census Illuminates Racial and Ethnic Composition of the Country". United States Census. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
- ^ "Race and Ethnicity in the United States: 2010 Census and 2020 Census". United States Census. Retrieved August 13, 2021.
- ^ "Measuring Religion in Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel". Measuring Religion in Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel | Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center. January 14, 2021. Archived from the original on February 8, 2021. Retrieved February 9, 2021.
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
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Burchfieldwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "America". Oxford Dictionary.
- ^ Webster's New World College Dictionary, 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
- ^ Merriam Webster dictionary. Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. 2013. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
- ^ "continent n. 5. a." (1989) Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition. Oxford University Press; "continent1 n." (2006) The Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th edition revised. (Ed.) Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press; "continent1 n." (2005) The New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd edition. (Ed.) Erin McKean. Oxford University Press; "continent [2, n] 4 a" (1996) Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. ProQuest Information and Learning; "continent" (2007) Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 14, 2007, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
- ^ "Leif Erikson (11th century)". BBC. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
- ^ Kamen, Henry. Spain's Road to Empire: The Making of a World Power, 1492–1763.
- ^ Taylor, Alan (2001). American Colonies. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 9780142002100.
- ^ "Censo 2010. Resultados provisionales: cuadros y grá" (in Spanish). Archived from the original on December 20, 2010. Retrieved February 25, 2011.
- ^ "Cartographer Put 'America' on the Map 500 years Ago". USA Today. Washington, D.C. Associated Press. April 24, 2007. Retrieved November 30, 2008.
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