From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Americas, also known as America, are the lands of the western hemisphere, composed of numerous entities and regions variably defined by geography, politics, and culture.
The Americas are frequently reckoned to comprise two separate continents (North America and South America), especially in English and in other languages. The Americas are also considered to comprise a single continent (named America), mostly in Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian.
[edit] Physical geography
[edit] Geophysical regions
[edit] Human geography
[edit] Geopolitical regions
- North America - Canada, Mexico and the United States;[2][3] also, often just Canada and the United States together.[4][5] May also include the dependencies of Bermuda, Greenland, and Saint Pierre and Miquelon.
- Central America – the southern region of North America, comprised of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.
- West Indies – the island territories of the Caribbean
- South America – as above, excluding Panama
Overlapping units:
[edit] Political divisions
- United States of America – a federal republic in North America founded in 1776 and comprising 50 states and one federal district (the District of Columbia), with several outlying territories of varying affiliation; commonly referred to as America
- Confederate States of America – a confederation in North America from 1861 to 1865, comprising eleven southern states that seceded from the United States of America: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. Their secession precipitated the American Civil War; upon its conclusion, the Confederate States were reunited with the United States.
- British America – former designation for British possessions in the Americas
- British North America – former designation for territories in North America colonised by Great Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly after 1783 and in reference to Canada. At the start of the American Revolution in 1775, the British Empire in North America included twenty colonies north of Mexico. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the American Revolution and established boundaries between the United States and British North America; East Florida and West Florida were also ceded to Spain in the treaty, and then ceded by Spain to the US in 1819. From 1867 to 1873, all but one of the remaining colonies of British North America confederated (through a series of eponymous acts) into the Dominion of Canada. Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949.
- British West Indies – the islands and territories of the Caribbean under British colonial influence
- Federal Republic of Central America – formerly the United Provinces of Central America, a federal republic in Central America from 1823 to 1840 comprising the newly independent Spanish territories: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and (later) Los Altos. In 1838, the federation succumbed to civil war and dissolved.
- West Indies Federation – a federation of several Caribbean island colonies and territories of the United Kingdom (see also: British West Indies) from 1958 to 1962. This was followed by the West Indies Associated States, a smaller, looser polity, from 1967 to 1981.
[edit] Linguistic/cultural regions
- Anglo-America – the region of the Americas having significant historical, linguistic, and cultural links to England or the British Isles, e.g., where English (a Germanic language) is officially or primarily spoken; often just Canada and the United States
- Latin America – the region of the Americas where Romance languages derived from Latin, namely Spanish and Portuguese, are officially or primarily spoken
- Ibero-America – the region of the Americas and Europe having significant historical, linguistic, and cultural links to Spain or Portugal (both on the Iberian peninsula)
- Hispanic America - those parts of the Americas inhabited by Spanish-speaking populations
- Mesoamerica – a region of the Americas extending from central Mexico southeast to Nicaragua and Costa Rica; a term used especially in archaeology and ethnohistory for the region where an array of civilizations had flourished during the pre-Columbian era, and which shared a number of historical and cultural traditions.
- Mesoamerican Linguistic Area – a sprachbund, or linguistic region, defined as the area inhabited by speakers of a set of indigenous languages which have developed certain similarities as a result of their historic and geographical connections; roughly co-terminate with the archaeological/ethnohistorical Mesoamerica.
- Aridoamerica – an archaeological/ethnohistorical regional division, essentially comprising the arid/semi-arid northern portion of present-day Mexico, whose historical peoples are generally characterised by a nomadic existence and minimal reliance on agriculture.
- Oasisamerica – an occasionally used archaeological/ethnohistorical term for a (pre-Columbian) cultural region of North America.
[edit] Sources
- The Columbia Gazetteer of the World Online. 2005. New York: Columbia University Press (proprietary; limited access).
- Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed. 2003. (ISBN 0-87779-809-5) New York: Merriam-Webster, Inc.
- Oxford English Reference Dictionary, 2nd ed. (rev.) 2002. (ISBN 0-19-860652-4) Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
- Composition of macro geographical (continental) regions, geographical sub-regions, and selected economic and other groupings. United Nations Statistics Division, Country and Region Codes.
- What's the difference between North, Latin, Central, Middle, South, Spanish and Anglo America? Geography at about.com.
[edit] See also
