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World map showing the Americas
CIA political map of the Americas
The 'Americas' are the lands of the Western hemisphere or New World consisting of the continents of North America[1] and South America with their associated islands and regions. The Americas cover 8.3% of the Earth's total surface area (28.4% of its land area) and contain about 14% of the human population (about 900 million people). ''The Americas'' may alternatively be referred to as '''America'''; however, ''America'' may be ambiguous as it can refer to either this entire landmass or just the United States of America.
History
Main articles: History of the Americas
Formation
South America broke off from Western Gondwanaland around 135 million BCE, forming its own continent.[2]
Starting around 15 million BCE, the collision of the Caribbean Plate and the Pacific Plate resulted in a series of volcanoes along the border that created a number of islands. The gaps in the archipelago of Central American filled in with material eroded off North America and South America, plus new land created by continued volcanism. By 3 million BCE, the continents of North America and South America were linked by the Isthmus of Panama, thereby forming the single landmass of the Americas.[3]
Settlement
Archaeological finds establish the widespread presence of the Clovis culture in North America and South America around 10000 BCE.[4] Whether this is the first migration of humans into North America and South America is disputed, with alternative theories holding that humans arrived in North America and South America as early as 40000 BCE.
The Inuit migrated into the Arctic section of North America in another wave of migration, arriving around 1000 CE.[5] Around the same time as the Inuit migrated into North America, Viking settlers began arriving in Greenland in 982 and Vinland shortly thereafter.[6] The Viking settlers quickly abandoned Vinland, and disappeared from Greenland by 1500.[7]
Large scale European colonization of the Americas began shortly after the voyages of Christopher Columbus in 1492. The spread of new diseases brought by Europeans and Africans killed most of the inhabitants of North America and South America,[8][9] with a general population crash of Native Americans occurring in the mid sixteenth century, often well ahead of European contact.[10] Native peoples and European colonizers came into widespread conflict, resulting in what some scholars have labelled a genocide of the natives. 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. Many individuals were forcibly transported to the Americas as slaves, prisoners or indentured servants.
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 particular landmass dates from April 25, 1507. It appears on a globe and a large map created by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges. An accompanying book, ''Cosmographiae Introductio'', explains that the name was derived from the Latinized version of the explorer Amerigo Vespucci's name, ''Americus Vespucius'', in its feminine form, ''America'', as the other continents all have Latin feminine names.[11]
Vespucci's role in the naming issue, like his exploratory activity, is unclear. Some sources say that he was unaware of the widespread use of his name to refer to the new landmass. Christopher Columbus, who had first brought the region's existence to the attention of Renaissance era voyagers, had died in 1506 (believing, to the end, that he'd discovered and colonized part of India) and could not protest Waldseemüller's decision.
Map of America by Jonghe, c. 1770.
A few alternative theories regarding the landmass' naming have been proposed, but none of them has achieved any widespread acceptance.
One alternative, first advanced by Jules Marcou in 1875 and later recounted by novelist Jan Carew, is that the name ''America'' derives from the district of ''Amerrique'' in Nicaragua.[12] The gold-rich district of Amerrique was purportedly visited by both Vespucci and Columbus, for whom the name became synonymous with gold. According to Marcou, Vespucci later applied the name to the New World, and even changed the spelling of his own name from ''Alberigo'' to ''Amerigo'' to reflect the importance of the discovery.
Another theory, first proposed by a Bristol antiquary and naturalist, Alfred Hudd, in 1908 was that ''America'' is derived from Richard Amerike, a merchant from Bristol, who is believed to have financed John Cabot's voyage of discovery from England to Newfoundland in 1497 as found in some documents from Westminster Abbey a few decades ago. Supposedly, Bristol fishermen had been visiting the coast of North America for at least a century before Columbus' voyage and Waldseemüller's maps are alleged to incorporate information from the early English journeys to North America. The theory holds that a variant of Amerike's name appeared on an early English map (of which however no copies survive) and that this was the true inspiration for Waldseemüller.
Geography
Extent
The northernmost point of the Americas is Kaffeklubben Island, which is the northernmost point of land on Earth.[13] The southernmost point is the islands of Southern Thule, although they are sometimes considered part of Antarctica.[14] The easternmost point is Nordostrundingen. The westernmost point is Attu Island.
Topography
The western geography of the Americas is dominated by the American cordillera, with the Andes running along the west coast of South America[15] and the Rocky Mountains and other Pacific Coast Ranges running the western side of North America.[16] The 2300 km long Appalachian Mountains run along the east coast of North America from Alabama to Newfoundland.[17] North of the Appalachians, the Arctic Cordillera runs along the eastern coast of Canada.[18]
Between its coastal mountain ranges North America has vast flat areas. The Interior Plains spread over much of the continent with low relief.[19] The Canadian Shield covers almost 5 million km² of North America and is generally quite flat.[20] Similarly, the north-east of South America is covered by the flat Amazon Basin.[21] 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.[22]
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.[23] The largest river basin in North America is that of the Mississippi, covering the second largest watershed on earth.[24] The second largest watershed of South America is that of the Paraná River, which covers about 2.5 million km².[25]
Demography
Ethnology
The population of the Americas is made up of the descendants of eight large ethnic groups and their combinations.
★ 1. The Indigenous peoples of the Americas, being Amerindians, Inuits, and Aleuts;
★ 2. Europeans, mainly Spanish, English, Irish, Italian, Portuguese, French, German and Dutch
★ 3. Mestizos, those of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry.
★ 4. Those of Black African ancestry.
★ 5. Mulattoes, people of mixed Black African and European ancestry.
★ 6. Zambos (Spanish) or Cafusos (Portuguese), those of mixed Black African and Amerindian ancestry.
★ 7. Asians, i.e., those of Central, Eastern, South, and Southeast Asian ancestry.
★ 8. Those from the Middle East (''Middle Easterners'').
★ 9. Amerasian- those of mixed, usually European, and Asian ancestry.
The majority of the people live in Latin America, named for its dominant languages, Spanish and Portuguese, both of which are descended from Latin. Latin America is typically contrasted with Anglo-America where English, a Germanic language, prevails: namely, Canada and the United States (in Northern America) have predominantly British roots and are quite different in terms of linguistic, cultural, and economic situation from other countries in the Americas.
Religion
Much of the population of the Americas practices Christianity with 85% of North Americans and 93% of South Americans describing it as their faith.[1]
The most popular Christian faith in the Americas is Roman Catholicism.[2] Protestantism is the second most popular faith, and is especially popular in Canada, the United States, and some Caribbean nations. In the State of Alaska, the majority of Christians are Orthodox Christians. Many other religions are present in the Americas, Judaism is practiced by 2% of the population in North America, and 0.23% in South America, while Islam is practiced by 1.8% of the population of North America and 0.28% in South America. Atheists represent 9% and 4% respectively. Indigenous religions are also practiced. Populations of Hindu and Sikh adherents are extremely low.[3]
Languages
Various languages are spoken in the Americas. Some are of European origin, others are spoken by indigenous peoples or are the mixture of various idioms like the different creoles.
The dominant language of Latin America is Spanish, though the largest nation in Latin America, Brazil, speaks Portuguese. Small enclaves of French- and English-speaking regions also exist in Latin America, notably in French Guiana and Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast, respectively, and Haitian Creole, of French origin, is dominant in the nation of Haiti. Native languages are more prominent in Latin America than in Anglo-America, with Nahuatl, Quechua, Aymara and Guaraní as the most common. Various other native languages are spoken with lesser frequency across both Anglo-America and Latin America. Creole languages other than Haitian Creole are also spoken in parts of Latin America.
The dominant language of Anglo-America, as the name suggests, is English. French is also official in Canada where it is the predominant language in Québec and an official language in New Brunswick along with English. It is also an important language in the U.S. state of Louisiana. Spanish has become widely spoken in parts of the United States due to heavy immigration from Latin America. High levels of immigration in general have brought great linguistic diversity to Anglo-America, with over 300 languages known to be spoken in the United States alone, but most languages are spoken only in small enclaves and by relatively small immigrant groups.
The nations of Guyana, Suriname and Belize are generally considered not to fall into either Anglo-America or Latin America due to lingual differences with Latin America and geographic and cultural differences with Anglo-America; English is the primary language of Guyana and Belize, and Dutch is the primary language of Suriname.
★ Spanish - spoken by approximately 320 million in many nations, regions, islands, and communities throughout both continents.
★ English - spoken by approximately 300 million people in the United States, Canada, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, The Bahamas, Bermuda, Belize, Guyana and many islands of the Caribbean.
★ Portuguese - spoken by approximately 185 million in South America, mostly Brazil[26]
★ French - spoken by approximately 12 million in Canada (majority 7 million in Quebec, and Acadian communities in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia); the Caribbean (Haiti, Guadeloupe, Martinique); French Guiana; the French islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon; and Acadiana (a Francophone area in southern Louisiana, United States).
★ Quechua - native language spoken by 10 - 13 million speakers in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile, and northwest Argentina.[27]
★ Haitian Creole - creole language, based in French and various African languages, spoken by 6 million in Haiti and the Haitian Diaspora in Canada and the United States.[28]
★ Guaraní (avañe'ẽ) - native language spoken by approximately 6 million people in Paraguay, and regions of Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil.
★ Italian - spoken by approximately 4 million people, mostly New England/New York, in the United States, southern Ontario, and Quebec in Canada, Argentina, and Brazil, and also includes pidgin dialects of Italian such as Talian (Brazil), and Chipilo (Mexico).
★ German: Some 2.2 million. Spoken by 1.1 million people in the United States plus another million in parts of Latin America, such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile and El Salvador. It is the second most studied second language in the United States.
★ Aymará - native language spoken by about 2.2 million speakers in the Andes, in Bolivia and Peru.
★ Quiché and other Maya languages - native languages spoken by about 1.9 million speakers in Guatemala and southern Mexico.
★ Nahuatl - native language of central Mexico with 1.5 million speakers. Also was the language of the Aztec People of Mexico.
★ Antillean Creole - spoken by approximately 1.2 million in the Eastern Caribbean (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Dominica, Saint Lucia) and French Guiana.
★ American Sign Language - An estimated 100,000 - 500,000 people within the Deaf Community use ASL as their primary language in the United States and Canada.[29]
★ Mapudungun (or Mapuche) - native language spoken by approximately 440,000 people in Chile and Argentina.
★ Navajo- native language spoken by about 178,000 speakers in the Southwest U.S. on the Navajo Nation (Indian reservation).[30] The tribe's isolation until the early 1900s provided a language used in a military code in World War II.
★ Dutch - spoken in the Netherlands Antilles, Aruba, and Suriname by about 210,000 speakers.
★ Pennsylvania Dutch - Some descendants of the Pennsylvania Dutch in the Northeast U.S. speak a local form of the German language which dates back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They number about 85,000.
★ Inuit - native language spoken by about 75,000 across the North American Arctic and to some extent in the subarctic in Labrador.
★ Cree - Cree is the name for a group of closely-related Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 50,000 speakers across Canada
★ Welsh - In Argentina, two towns of Trelew and Rawson were settled by Welsh immigrants in the late nineteenth century and the Welsh language remains spoken by about 25,000, including the towns' older residents.
★ Cherokee- native language spoken in a small corner of Oklahoma, U.S by about 19,000 speakers. The use of this language has rebounded in the late twentieth century. It is known to possess its own alphabet, the Cherokee syllabary.
★ Gullah- a creole language based on English with strong influences from West and Central African languages spoken by the Gullah people, an African American population living on the coastal region of the U.S. states of South Carolina and Georgia.
Most of the non-native languages have, to different degrees, evolved differently from the mother country, but are usually still mutually intelligible. Some have combined though, which has even resulted in completely new languages, such as Papiamentu, which is a combination of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch (representing the respective colonizers), native Arawak, various African languages and, more recently, English. Because of immigration, there are many communities where other languages are spoken from all parts of the world, especially in the United States, Brazil, Argentina and Canada, four very important destinations for immigrants.
Terminology
The Spanish American colonies.
America/Americas
In many parts of the world, ''America'' in the singular is commonly used as a name for the United States of America; however, ''(the) Americas'' (plural with ''s'' and generally with the definite article) is not and is invariably used to refer to the lands and regions of the Western hemisphere. Usage of ''America'' to also refer to this collectivity remains fairly common.
While many in the United States of America generally refer to the country as ''America'' and themselves as ''Americans,''[31] many people elsewhere in the Americas resent what they perceive as appropriation of the term in this context and, thus, this usage is frequently avoided.[32][33][34] In Canada, their southern neighbour is seldom referred to as "America" with "the United States", "the U.S.", or (informally) "the States" used instead.33 English dictionaries and compendiums differ regarding usage and rendition.[4][5]
American
Main articles: Use of the word American
English usage
Whether usage of ''America'' or ''the Americas'' is preferred, ''American'' is a self-referential term for many people living in the Americas. However, much of the English-speaking world uses the word to refer solely to a citizen, resident, or national of the United States of America. Instead, the word ''pan-American'' is used as an unambiguous adjective to refer to the Americas.
In addition, some Canadians resent being referred to as Americans because of mistaken assumptions that they are U.S. citizens or an inability—particularly of people overseas—to distinguish Canadian English and American English accents.33
Spanish usage
In Spanish, ''América'' is the name of a region considered a single continent composed of the subcontinents of ''Sudamérica'' and ''Norteamérica'', the land bridge of ''Centroamérica'', and the islands of the ''Antillas''. ''Americano/a'' in Spanish refers to a person from ''América'' in a similar way that ''europeo'' or ''europea'' refers to a person from ''Europe''. The terms ''sudamericano/a'', ''centroamericano/a'', ''antillano/a'' and ''norteamericano/a'' can be used to more specifically refer to the location where a person may live.
Citizens of the United States of America are normally referred to by the term ''estadounidense'' instead of ''americano'' or ''americana''. Also, the term ''norteamericano'' may refer to a citizen of the United States. This term is primarily used to refer to citizens of the United States, rarely those of other North American countries.[35]
Portuguese usage
In Portuguese, the word ''americano'' refers to the whole of the ''Americas''. But, in Brazil and Portugal, it is widely used to refer to the citizens of the United States. Sometimes "norte-americano" is also used, but "americano" is the most common term employed by people and media at large, while "norte-americano" (North American) is more common in books. The least ambiguous term, "estadunidense" (used more frequently in Brazil) or "estado-unidense" (used more frequently in Portugal), something like "United Statian" or "estadounidense" in Spanish language), and "ianque" - the Portuguese version of "Yankee" - are rarely used.
"América", however, is not that frequently used as synonym to the country, and almost exclusively in current speech, while in print and in more formal environments the US is usually called either "Estados Unidos da América" (i.e. United States of America) or only "Estados Unidos" (i.e. United States). There is some difference between the usage of these words in Portugal and in Brazil, being the Brazilians less prone than the Portuguese to apply the term América to the country. A well-known example of such use is the translation of the title of Alain Resnais' movie "Mon Oncle d'Amérique": "O Meu Tio da América".
French usage
In French, as in English, the word ''Américain'' can be confusing as it can be both used to refer to the United States, and to the American continents.
The noun ''Amérique'' sometimes refers to the whole as one continent, and sometimes two continents, southern and northern; the United States is generally referred to as ''les États-Unis d'Amérique'', ''les États-Unis'', or ''les USA''. However, the usage of ''Amérique'' to refer to the United States, while technically not correct, does still have some currency in France.
The adjective ''américain'' is most often used for things relating to the United States; however, it may also be used for things relating to the American continents.
Things relating to the United States can be referred to without ambiguity by the words ''états-unien'', ''étasunien'' or ''étatsunien'', although their usage is rare.
Countries
Map showing date of independence of country in the Americas. Black shows areas not yet independent.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ |
Dependencies
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ |
Multinational organizations in the Americas
See also
Footnotes
1. United Nations Statistics Division- Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications (M49)
2. The role of mantle plumes in continental breakup: case histories from Gondwanaland, Brian C. Story, , , Nature,
3. Land bridge: How did the formation of a sliver of land result in major changes in biodiversity
4. New Perspectives on the Clovis versus Pre-Clovis Controversy, David S. Whitley and Ronald I. Dorn, , , American Antiquity, 1993
5. Canadian Inuit History
6. Vinland
7. The Norse settlers in Greenland - A short history
8. Aboriginal North American Population and Rates of Decline, c.a. A.D. 1500 - 1900, Russell Thornton, , , Current Anthropology,
9. Virgin Soil Epidemics as a Factor in the Aboriginal Depopulation in America, Alfred W. Crosby, , , David and Mary Quarterly,
10. Disease Transfer at Contact, Henry F. Dobyns, , , Annual Review of Anthropology, 1993
11. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-24-america-turns-500_N.htm?csp=34
12. The Origin of the Name "America", George C. Hurlbut, , , Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York, 1888
13. Romancing the north Berkeley explorer may have stepped on ancient Thule
14. South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Antarctica - Travel
15. Andes Mountain Range
16. Rocky Mountains
17. Appalachian Mountains
18. Arctic Cordillera
19. Interior Plains Region
20. Natural History of Quebec
21. Strategy
22. SRTM SOUTH AMERICA IMAGES
23. Greastest Places: Notes: Amazonia
24. Mississippi River
25. Great Rivers Partnership - Paraguay-Parana
26. Portuguese Facts
27. Now Bolivia Can Do Windows
28. The "Real" Haitian Creole: Ideology, Metalinguistics, and Orthographic Choice, Bambi B. Schieffelin; Rachelle Charlier Doucet, , , American Ethnologist,
29. A3 Languages cited in this book Mike Gasser
30. American Indian & Alaska Native Heritage Month: November 2003
31. Burchfield, R. W. 2004. ''Fowler's Modern English Usage.'' (ISBN 0-19-861021-1) Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press; p. 48.
32. "American." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (ISBN 0-19-214183-X); McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 35.
33. "America." ''Oxford Guide to Canadian English Usage.'' (ISBN 0-19-541619-8) Fee, Margery and McAlpine, J., ed., 1997. Toronto: Oxford University Press; p. 36.
34. "America." ''Microsoft Encarta Dictionary''. 2007. Microsoft.
35. Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas:Norteamérica
References
★ "Americas". ''The Columbia Gazetteer of the World Online''. 2006. New York: Columbia University Press.
★ "Americas". ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 15th ed. 1986. (ISBN 0-85229-434-4) Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
★ Burchfield, R. W. 2004. ''Fowler's Modern English Usage.'' (ISBN 0-19-861021-1) Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
★ Fee, Margery and McAlpine, J. 1997. ''Oxford Guide to Canadian English Usage.'' (ISBN 0-19-541619-8) Toronto: Oxford University Press.
★ Kane , Katie ''Nits Make Lice: Drogheda, Sand Creek, and the Poetics of Colonial Extermination'' ''Cultural Critique'', No. 42 (Spring, 1999), pp. 81-103 doi:10.2307/1354592
★ Pearsall, Judy and Trumble, Bill., ed. 2002. ''Oxford English Reference Dictionary'', 2nd ed. (rev.) (ISBN 0-19-860652-4) Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
★ Churchill, Ward ''A Little Matter of Genocide'' 1997 City Lights Books ISBN 0872863239
★ What's the difference between North, Latin, Central, Middle, South, Spanish and Anglo America? Geography at about.com.
External links
★ The naming of America: fragments we've shored against ourselves by Jonathan Cohen
★ Organization of American States
★ America noviter delineata, a 1633 map of North and South America made by Matthaeus Merian
★ [6], the story of the name "America" on the C. Columbus French reference site (in English)
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