Portugal is the leading country in the European exploration of the world in the 15th century. The Treaty of Tordesillas divided the Earth, outside Europe, in 1494 into Spanish (Castilian) and Portuguese global territorial hemispheres for exclusive conquest and colonization. Portugal colonized parts of South America (mostly Brazil), but also some failed attempts to colonize North America in present day Canada.

Settlements in North America[link]

In 1501 and 1502, the Corte-Real brothers explored Newfoundland and Labrador and claimed it to the Portuguese Crown. Soon, in 1506, King Manuel I created taxes for the fisheries of cod in Newfoundland bays. The colony of João Álvares Fagundes in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia was only five years old when it was abandoned. The foreign invasion of the homelands of the indigenous people was met with resistance and the main cause of the intruding project's failure.

An anachronous map of the Portuguese Empire (1415-1999). Red - actual possessions; Pink - explorations, areas of influence and trade and claims of sovereignty; Blue - main sea explorations, routes and areas of influence. The disputed discovery of Australia is not shown.

Colonization of Brazil[link]

Explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral landed on April 22,1500 in what is today Porto Seguro, Brazil. Permanent habitation did not begin until São Vicente was founded in 1532, although temporary trading posts were established earlier to collect brazilwood, used as a dye.

With permanent settlement came the establishment of the sugar cane industry and its intensive labor demands which were met with Native and later African slaves. The capital, Salvador, was established in 1549 at the Bay of All Saints. The first Jesuits arrived the same year.

From 1565 through 1567, Mem de Sá, a Portuguese colonial official and the third Governor General of Brazil, successfully destroyed a ten year-old French colony called France Antarctique, at Guanabara Bay. He and his nephew, Estácio de Sá, then founded the city of Rio de Janeiro on March 1567.

Portuguese possessions in North America, from Reinel-Lopo Homem 1519's Miller Atlas.

Map by Lopo Homem (c. 1519) showing the coast of Brazil in the earliest period of Portuguese colonisation.

Between 1630 and 1654, the Netherlands came to control part of Brazil's Northeast region, with their capital in Recife. The Portuguese won a significant victory in the Second Battle of Guararapes in 1649. By 1654, the Netherlands had surrendered and returned control of all Brazilian land to the Portuguese.

Unlike the Spanish, the Portuguese did not divide their colonial territory in America. The captaincies they created were subdued to a centralized administration in Salvador which reported directly to the Crown in Lisbon. Therefore, it is not common to refer to "Portuguese America" (like Spanish America, Dutch America, etc.), but rather to Brazil, as a unified colony since its very beginnings.^{[dubious – discuss]}

Colonial Brazil at the date of independence.

Sugarcane in Maui, Hawaii, as it was largely cultivated in the Captaincy of Pernambuco.

As a result, Brazil did not split into several states by the time of Independence (1822), as happened to its Spanish-speaking neighbors. The adoption of monarchy instead of federal republic in the first six decades of Brazilian political sovereignty also contributed to the nation's unity.

See also[link]

• Atlantic World
• Catholic Church and the Age of Discovery
• Colonial Brazil
• Former colonies and territories in Canada
• History of Brazil
• Jesuit Reductions
• Portugal in the period of discoveries

References and external links[link]

• The Corte-Real explorations of North America in the official Library and Archives Canada website.
• João Álvares Fagundes in the official Library and Archives Canada website.

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The start of the European colonization of the Americas is typically dated to 1492.^[1] However, L'Anse aux Meadows in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador is much older. Dating from 1000AD, it is the only known site of a Norse or Viking village in Canada, and in North America outside of Greenland. L'Anse aux Meadows remains the only widely accepted instance of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact and is notable for its possible connection with the attempted colony of Vinland established by Leif Ericson around the same time period or, more broadly, with Norse exploration of the Americas.

In 1492, a Spanish expedition headed by Christopher Columbus sailed to America to sell, buy, and trade rich spices and other goods. European conquest, exploration, and large-scale exploration and colonization soon followed. This first occurred along the Caribbean coasts on the islands of Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Cuba, and after 1500 extended into the interiors of both North and South America. In 1497, sailing from the north on behalf of England, John Cabot landed on the North American coast, and a year later, Columbus's third voyage reached the South American coast.

France founded colonies in much of eastern North America, on a number of Caribbean islands, and in South America. Portugal colonized Brazil.

Eventually, the entire Western Hemisphere came under the control of European governments, leading to profound changes to its landscape, population, and plant and animal life. In the 19th century alone over 50 million people left Europe for the Americas.^[2] The post-1492 era is known as the period of the Columbian Exchange.

Early conquests, claims, and colonies[link]

Territories in the Americas colonized or claimed by a European great power in 1750.

---

Animated Maps:
North America territorial sovereignty 1750-present
Central America & Caribbean sovereignty 1700-present.
South America territorial sovereignty 1700-present.

The first explorations and conquests were made by the Spanish and the Portuguese, immediately following their own final reconquest of Iberia in 1492. In the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas, ratified by the Pope, these two kingdoms divided the entire non-European world into two areas of world exploration and colonization, with a north to south boundary that cut through the Atlantic Ocean and the eastern part of present-day Brazil. Based on this Treaty and on early claims by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa, discoverer of the Pacific Ocean in 1513, the Spanish conquered large territories in North, Central and South America. Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes took over the Aztec Kingdom and Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire. As a result, by the mid-16th century, the Spanish Crown had gained control of much of western South America, Central America and southern North America, in addition to its earlier Caribbean territories. Over this same timeframe, Portugal colonized much of eastern South America, naming it Brazil.

Other European nations soon disputed the terms of the Treaty of Tordesillas. England and France attempted to plant colonies in the Americas in the 16th century, but these were a failure. However, in the following century, the two kingdoms, along with the Dutch Republic, succeeded in establishing permanent colonies. Some of these were on Caribbean islands, which had often already been conquered by the Spanish or depopulated by disease, while others were in eastern North America, which had not been colonized by Spain north of Florida.

Early European possessions in North America included Spanish Florida, Spanish New Mexico, the English colonies of Virginia (with its North Atlantic off-shoot, The Somers Isles) and New England, the French colonies of Acadia and Canada, the Swedish colony of New Sweden, and the Dutch New Netherland. In the 18th century, Denmark–Norway revived its former colonies in Greenland, while the Russian Empire gained a foothold in Alaska.

As more nations gained an interest in the colonization of the Americas, competition for territory became increasingly fierce. Colonists often faced the threat of attacks from neighboring colonies, as well as from indigenous tribes and pirates.

Early state-sponsored colonists[link]

The first phase of European activity in the Americas began with the Atlantic Ocean crossings of Christopher Columbus (1492–1504), sponsored by Spain, whose original attempt was to find a new route to India and China, known as "the Indies". He was followed by other explorers such as John Cabot, who reached Newfoundland and was sponsored by England. Pedro Álvares Cabral reached Brazil and claimed it for Portugal. Amerigo Vespucci, working for Portugal in voyages from 1497 to 1513, established that Columbus had reached a new set of continents. Cartographers still use a Latinized version of his first name, America, for the two continents. Other explorers included Giovanni da Verrazzano, sponsored by France; the Portuguese João Vaz Corte-Real in Newfoundland; and Samuel de Champlain (1567–1635) who explored Canada. In 1513, Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and led the first European expedition to see the Pacific Ocean from the west coast of the New World. In an action with enduring historical import, Balboa claimed the Pacific Ocean and all the lands adjoining it for the Spanish Crown. It was 1517 before another expedition from Cuba visited Central America, landing on the coast of Yucatán in search of slaves.

Spanish and Portuguese Empires in the period of their personal union under King Philip II (1581-1640).

These explorations were followed, notably in the case of Spain, by a phase of conquest: The Spaniards, having just finished the Reconquista of Spain from Muslim rule, were the first to colonize the Americas, applying the same model of governing to the former Al-Andalus as to their territories of the New World. Ten years after Columbus's discovery, the administration of Hispaniola was given to Nicolás de Ovando of the Order of Alcántara, founded during the Reconquista. As in the Iberian Peninsula, the inhabitants of Hispaniola were given new landmasters, while religious orders handled the local administration. Progressively the encomienda system, which granted tribute (access to indigneous labor and taxation) to European settlers, was set in place.

A relatively large misconception is that a small number of conquistadores conquered vast territories, aided only by disease epidemics and their powerful caballeros. Recent archaeological excavations have induced the notion of a vast Spanish-Indian alliance numbering in the hundreds of thousands.^[3] Along with cavalry and the use of cannons as a siege weapon, the Spanish conquistadores were able to utilize the divisions among native ethnic groups and implement them with their own forces. Even with these reserves, the Europeans still had great difficulties in establishing colonies or even initiating peace treaties as seen in the Arauco War, Chichimeca War, Red Cloud's War, the Second Seminole War, and Pontiac's Rebellion. Hernán Cortés eventually conquered Mexico and the Tlaxcala in 1519-1521, while the conquest of the Inca was carried out by some 40,000 Incan renegades led by Francisco Pizarro in between 1532 and 1535.

Over the first century and a half after Columbus's voyages, the native population of the Americas plummeted by an estimated 80% (from around 50 million in 1492 to eight million in 1650^[4]), mostly by outbreaks of Old World diseases but also by several massacres and forced labour (the mita was re-established in the old Inca Empire, and the tequitl – equivalent of the mita – in the Aztec Empire). The conquistadores replaced the native American oligarchies, in part through miscegenation with the local elites. In 1532, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor imposed a vice-king to Mexico, Antonio de Mendoza, in order to prevent Cortes' independantist drives, who definitively returned to Spain in 1540. Two years later, Charles V signed the New Laws (which replaced the Laws of Burgos of 1512) prohibiting slavery and the repartimientos, but also claiming as his own all the American lands and all of the autochthonous people as his own subjects.

A Spaniard plays with his mixed-race daughter while his Mestiza wife looks on, by Miguel Cabrera, 1763

When in May 1493, the Pope Alexander VI issued the Inter caetera bull granting the new lands to the Kingdom of Spain, he requested in exchange an evangelization of the people. Thus, during Columbus's second voyage, Benedictine friars accompanied him, along with twelve other priests. As slavery was prohibited between Christians, and could only be imposed in non-Christian prisoners of war or on men already sold as slaves, the debate on Christianization was particularly acute during the 16th century. In 1537, the papal bull Sublimis Deus recognized that Native Americans possessed souls, thus prohibiting their enslavement, without putting an end to the debate. Some claimed that a native who had rebelled and then been captured could be enslaved nonetheless. Later, the Valladolid controversy opposed the Dominican priest Bartolomé de Las Casas to another Dominican philosopher Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, the first one arguing that Native Americans were beings doted with souls, as all other human beings, while the latter argued to the contrary and justified their enslavement. The process of Christianization was at first violent: when the first Franciscans arrived in Mexico in 1524, they burned the places dedicated to pagan cult, alienating much of the local population.^[5] In the 1530s, they began to adapt Christian practices to local customs, including the building of new churches on the sites of ancient places of worship, leading to a mix of Old World Christianity with local religions.^[5] The Spanish Roman Catholic Church, needing the natives' labor and cooperation, evangelized in Quechua, Nahuatl, Guarani and other Native American languages, contributing to the expansion of these indigenous languages and equipping some of them with writing systems. One of the first primitive schools for Native Americans was founded by Fray Pedro de Gante in 1523.

To reward their troops, the Conquistadores often allotted Indian towns to their troops and officers. Black African slaves were introduced to substitute for Native American labor in some locations - most notably the West Indies, where the indigenous population was nearing extinction on many islands.

During this time, the Portuguese gradually switched from an initial plan of establishing trading posts to extensive colonization of what is now Brazil. They imported millions of slaves to run their plantations. The Portuguese and Spanish royal governments expected to rule these settlements and collect at least 20% of all treasure found (the Quinto Real collected by the Casa de Contratación), in addition to collecting all the taxes they could. By the late 16th century American silver accounted for one-fifth of Spain's total budget.^[6] In the 16th century perhaps 240,000 Europeans entered American ports.^[7][8]

Economic immigrants[link]

Fur traders in Canada, trading with First Nations, 1777

Inspired by the Spanish riches from colonies founded upon the conquest of the Aztecs, Incas, and other large Native American populations in the sixteenth century, the first Englishmen to settle permanently in America hoped for some of the same rich discoveries when they established their first permanent settlement in Jamestown, Virginia. They were sponsored by common stock companies such as the chartered Virginia Company (and its off-shoot, the Somers Isles Company) financed by wealthy Englishmen who understood the economic potential of this new land. The main purpose of this colony was the hope of finding gold or the possibility (or impossibility) of finding a passage through the Americas to the Indies. It took strong leaders, like John Smith, to convince the colonists of Jamestown that searching for gold was not taking care of their immediate needs for food and shelter and that "he who shall not work shall not eat." (A direction based on text from the New Testament.) The extremely high mortality rate was quite distressing and cause for despair among the colonists. Tobacco later became a cash crop, with the work of John Rolfe and others, for export and the sustaining economic driver of Virginia and nearby colonies like Maryland.

From the beginning of Virginia's settlements in 1587 until the 1680s, the main source of labour and a large portion of the immigrants were indentured servants looking for new life in the overseas colonies. During the 17th century, indentured servants constituted three-quarters of all European immigrants to the Chesapeake region. Most of the indentured servants were English farmers who had been pushed off their lands due to the expansion of livestock raising, the enclosure of land, and overcrowding in the countryside. This unfortunate turn of events served as a push for thousands of people (mostly single men) away from their situation in England. There was hope, however, as American landowners were in need of labourers and were willing to pay for a labourer’s passage to America if they served them for several years. By selling passage for five to seven years worth of work they could hope to start out on their own in America.

In the French colonial regions, the focus of economy was the fur trade with the natives. Farming was set up primarily to provide subsistence only, although cod and other fish of the Grand Banks were a major export and source of income for the French and many other European nations. The fur trade was also practiced by the Russians on the northwest coast of North America. After the French and Indian War, the British were ceded all French possessions in North America east of the Mississippi River, aside from the tiny islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.

Religious immigration[link]

Penn's Treaty with the Indians. This treaty between the pacifist Quakers and Indians was never violated.

Roman Catholics were the first major religious group to immigrate to the New World, as settlers in the colonies of Portugal and Spain (and later, France) were required to belong to that faith. English and Dutch colonies, on the other hand, tended to be more religiously diverse. Settlers to these colonies included Anglicans, Dutch Calvinists, English Puritans, English Catholics, Scottish Presbyterians, French Huguenots, German and Swedish Lutherans, as well as Quakers, Mennonites, Amish, Moravians and Jews of various nationalities.

Many groups of colonists came to the Americas searching for the right to practice their religion without persecution. The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century broke the unity of Western Christendom and led to the formation of numerous new religious sects, which often faced persecution by governmental authorities. In England, many people came to question the organization of the Church of England by the end of the sixteenth century. One of the primary manifestations of this was the Puritan movement, which sought to "purify" the existing Church of England of its many residual Catholic rites that they believed had no mention in the Bible.

A strong believer in the notion of rule by divine right, England's Charles I persecuted religious dissenters. Waves of repression led to the migration of about 20,000 Puritans to New England between 1629 and 1642, where they founded multiple colonies. Later in the century, the new Pennsylvania colony was given to William Penn in settlement of a debt the king owed his father. Its government was set up by William Penn in about 1682 to become primarily a refuge for persecuted English Quakers; but others were welcomed. Baptists, Quakers and German and Swiss Protestants flocked to Pennsylvania.

The lure of cheap land, religious freedom and the right to improve themselves with their own hand was very attractive to those who wished to escape from persecution and poverty.

Forced immigration[link]

African slaves working in 17th-century Virginia, by an unknown artist, 1670

Slavery existed in the Americas, prior to the arrival of Europeans, as the Natives often captured and held other tribes' members as captives.^[9] Some of these captives were even forced to undergo human sacrifice under some tribes, such as the Aztecs. The Spanish followed with the enslavement of local aborigines in the Caribbean. As the native populations declined (mostly from European diseases, but also and significantly from forced exploitation and careless murder), they were often replaced by Africans imported through a large commercial slave trade. By the 18th century, the overwhelming number of black slaves was such that Native American slavery was less commonly used. Africans, who were taken aboard slave ships to the Americas, were primarily obtained from their African homelands by coastal tribes who captured and sold them. The high incidence of disease nearly always fatal to Europeans kept nearly all the slave capture activities confined to native African tribes. Rum, guns and gun powder were some of the major trade items exchanged for slaves.

The great majority went to sugar colonies in the Caribbean and to Brazil, where life expectancy was short and the numbers had to be continually replenished.

The total slave trade to islands in the Caribbean, Brazil, Mexico and to the United States is estimated to have involved 12 million Africans.^[10][11]

13 Colonies[link]

Slaves imported to American colonies^[12]

• 1620-1700.....21,000
• 1701-1760....189,000
• 1761-1770.....63,000
• 1771-1790.....56,000
• 1791-1800.....79,000
• 1801-1810....124,000^[13]
• 1810-1865.....51,000
• Total ..........597,000

About 600,000 slaves were imported into the U.S., or 5% of the 12 million slaves brought across from Africa. Life expectancy was much higher in the U.S. (because of better food, less disease, lighter work loads, and better medical care) so the numbers grew rapidly by excesses of births over deaths, reaching 4 million by the 1860 Census. From 1770 until 1860, the rate of natural growth of North American slaves was much greater than for the population of any nation in Europe, and was nearly twice as rapid as that of England. ^[14]

In all, approximately three to four hundred thousand black slaves streamed into the ports of Charleston, South Carolina and Newport, Rhode Island until about 1810. Of these, 5.4% (645,000) were brought to what is now the United States.^[15] In addition to African slaves, poor Europeans were brought over in substantial numbers as indentured servants, particularly in the British Thirteen colonies.^[16][17]

Disease and indigenous population loss[link]

Drawing accompanying text in Book XII of the 16th-century Florentine Codex (compiled 1540–1585), showing Nahua of conquest-era central Mexico suffering from smallpox.

The European and Asian lifestyle included a long history of sharing close quarters with domesticated animals such as cows, pigs, sheep, goats, horses, and various domesticated fowl, which had resulted in epidemic diseases unknown in the Americas. Thus the large-scale contact with Europeans after 1492 introduced novel germs to the indigenous people of the Americas. Epidemics of smallpox (1518, 1521, 1525, 1558, 1589), typhus (1546), influenza (1558), diphtheria (1614) and measles (1618) swept ahead of initial European contact,^[18][19] killing between 10 million and 20 million^[20] people, up to 95% of the indigenous population of the Americas.^[21][22][23] The cultural and political instability attending these losses appears to have been of substantial aid in the efforts of various colonists to seize the great wealth in land and resources of which indigenous societies had customarily made use.^[24]

Such diseases yielded human mortality of an unquestionably enormous gravity and scale – and this has profoundly confused efforts to determine its full extent with any true precision. Estimates of the pre-Columbian population of the Americas vary tremendously.

Others have argued that significant variations in population size over pre-Columbian history are reason to view higher-end estimates with caution. Such estimates may reflect historical population maxima, while indigenous populations may have been at a level somewhat below these maxima or in a moment of decline in the period just prior to contact with Europeans. Indigenous populations hit their ultimate lows in most areas of the Americas in the early twentieth century; in a number of cases, growth has returned.^[25]

List of European colonies in the Americas[link]

This section requires expansion.

British

• British America (1607– 1783)
  • Thirteen Colonies
  • British North America (1783 – 1907)
  • Indian Reserve (1763–1783)
• British West Indies

Courland

• New Courland (Tobago) (1654–1689)

Danish

• Danish West Indies (1754–1917)
• Greenland (1814 - today)

Dutch

• New Netherland (1609–1667)
• Essequibo (1616–1815)
• Dutch Virgin Islands (1625–1680)
• Berbice (1627–1815)
• New Walcheren (1628–1677)
• Dutch Brazil (1630–1654)
• Pomeroon (1650–1689)
• Cayenne (1658–1664)
• Demerara (1745–1815)
• Suriname (1667–1954)
• Curaçao and Dependencies (1634–1954)
• Sint Eustatius and Dependencies (1636–1954)

French

• New France (1604–1763)
  • Acadia (1604–1713)
  • Canada (1608–1763)
  • Louisiana (1699–1763, 1800–1803)
  • Newfoundland (1662–1713)
  • Île Royale (1713–1763)
• French Guiana (1763-today)
• French West Indies
• Saint-Domingue (1659–1804, now Haiti)
• Tobago
• Virgin Islands
• France Antarctique (1555–1567)
• Equinoctial France (1612–1615)

Portuguese

• Colonial Brazil (1500–1815) became a Kingdom, United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.
• Cisplatina (1808–1822, today Uruguay)
• Barbados (1536–1620)
• French Guiana (1809–1817)

Russian

• Russian America (now Alaska, 1799–1867)

Spanish

• Cuba (until 1898)
• New Granada (1717–1819)
  • Captaincy General of Venezuela
• New Spain (1535–1821)
  • Nueva Extremadura
  • Nueva Galicia
  • Nuevo Reino de León
  • Nuevo Santander
  • Nueva Vizcaya
  • Las Californias
  • Santa Fe de Nuevo México
• Peru (1542–1824)
• Puerto Rico (until 1898)
• Rio de la Plata (1776–1814)
• Santo Domingo (last Spanish rule 1861-1865)

Swedish

• New Sweden (1638–1655)
• Saint Barthélemy (1785–1878)
• Guadeloupe (1813–1815)

Exhibitions and collections[link]

In 2007, the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History and the Virginia Historical Society (VHS) co-organized a traveling exhibition to recount the strategic alliances and violent conflict between European empires (English, Spanish, French) and the Native people living in North America. The exhibition was presented in three languages and with multiple perspectives. Artifacts on display included rare surviving Native and European artifacts, maps, documents, and ceremonial objects from museums and royal collections on both sides of the Atlantic. The exhibition opened in Richmond, Virginia on March 17, 2007, and closed at the Smithsonian International Gallery on October 31, 2009.

The related online exhibition explores the international origins of the societies of Canada and the United States and commemorates the 400th anniversary of three lasting settlements in Jamestown (1607), Québec (1608), and Santa Fe (1609). The site is accessible in three languages. ^[26]

See also[link]

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Bailyn, Bernard, ed. Atlantic History: Concept and Contours (Harvard UP, 2005)
• Bannon, John Francis. History of the Americas (2 vols. 1952), older textbook
• Bolton, Herbert E. "The Epic of Greater America," American Historical Review 38, no. 3 (April 1933): 448–74 in JSTOR
• Davis, Harold E. The Americas in History (1953), older textbook
• Egerton, Douglas R. et al. The Atlantic World: A History, 1400-1888 (2007)
• Eltis, David. The Rise of African Slavery in the Americas (2000).
• Hinderaker, Eric; Horn, Rebecca. "Territorial Crossings: Histories and Historiographies of the Early Americas," William and Mary Quarterly, July 2010, Vol. 67 Issue 3, pp 395–432 in JSTOR
• Lockhart, James, and Stuart B. Schwartz. Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil (1983).
• Merriman, Roger Bigelow. The Rise of The Spanish Empire in the Old World and in the New (4 vol. 1934)
• Morrison, Samuel Eliot. The European Discovery of America: The northern voyages, A.D. 500-1600 (1971)
• Morrison, Samuel Eliot. The European Discovery of America: The southern voyages, 1492-1616 (1971)
• Parry, J. H. The Age of Reconnaissance: Discovery, Exploration, and Settlement, 1450-1650 (1982)
• Sarson, Steven, and Jack P. Greene, eds. The American Colonies and the British Empire, 1607-1783 (8 vol, 2010); primary sources
• Starkey, Armstrong (1998). European-Native American Warfare, 1675-1815. University of Oklahoma Press ISBN 978-0-8061-3075-0
• Vickers, Daniel, ed. A Companion to Colonial America (2003),

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Americas

Area	42,549,000 km2
Population	910,720,588 (July 2008 est.)
Pop. density	21/km2 (55/sq mi)
Demonym	American[1] (but see usage)
Countries	35
Dependencies	23 List of sovereign states and dependent territories in the Americas
Languages	Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Quechua, Haitian Creole, Guaraní, Aymara, Dutch and many others
Time Zones	UTC-10 to UTC

The Americas, or America,^[2][3] are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World.

In the English language, the Americas refers to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, whereas America, in current usage, usually refers to the United States of America.^[3][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).

History[link]

CIA political map of the Americas in Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection

Settlement[link]

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]

Pre-Columbian era[link]

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 pagan, 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]

European colonization[link]

Large-scale European colonization of the Americas began shortly after the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492. The first Spanish settlement in the Americas was La Isabela in northern Hispaniola. This town was abandoned shortly after in favor of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, founded in 1496, the oldest American city of European foundation. This was the base from which the Spanish monarchy administered its new colonies and their expansion. On the continent, Panama City on the Pacific coast of Central America, founded on August 5, 1519, played an important role, being the base for the Spanish conquest of South America. According to the anthropologist R. Thornton, 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.

[edit] 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

Geology[link]

South America broke off from the west of the supercontinent Gondwanaland around 135 million years ago, forming its own continent.^[28] Around 15 million years ago, 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 million years ago, the continents of North America and South America were linked by the Isthmus of Panama, thereby forming the single landmass of the Americas.^[29]

Geography[link]

The northernmost point of the Americas is Kaffeklubben Island, which is the most northerly 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 mainland of the Americas is the world's longest north-to-south landmass. The distance between its two polar extremities, the Boothia Peninsula in northern Canada and Cape Froward in Chilean Patagonia, is roughly 14,000 km (8,700 mi).^[32]

The mainland's most westerly point is the end of the Seward Peninsula in Alaska; Attu Island, further off the Alaskan coast to the west, is considered the westernmost point of the Americas. Ponta do Seixas in northeastern Brazil forms the easternmost extremity of the mainland,^[32] while Nordostrundingen, in Greenland, is the most eastely point of the continental shelf.

Topography[link]

Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Americas

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 North American 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]

The ranges with the highest peaks are the Andes and Rocky Mountain ranges. While high peaks exists in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range, on average there are not as many reaching a height greater than fourteen thousand feet. In North America, the largest amount of fourteeners occur in the United States and more specifically in the U.S. state of Colorado. The highest peaks in the Americas are located in the Andes with Aconcagua of Argentina being the highest; in North America Denali in the U.S. state of Alaska is the tallest.

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]

Hydrology[link]

Mississippi River Delta

Hurricane Katrina

With coastal mountains and interior plains, the Americas have several large river basins that drain the continents. The largest river basin in North America is that of the Mississippi, covering the second largest watershed on the planet.^[41] The Mississippi-Missouri river system drains most of 31 states of the U.S., most of the Great Plains, and large areas between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. This river is the fourth longest in the world and tenth most powerful in the world.

In North America, to the east of the Appalachian Mountains, there are no major rivers but rather a series of rivers and streams that flow east with their terminus in the Atlantic Ocean; these rivers included the Savannah River. A similar instance arises with central Canadian rivers that drain into Hudson Bay; the largest being the Churchill River. On the west coast of North America, the main rivers are the Colorado River, Columbia River, Yukon River, and Sacramento River.

The Colorado River drains much of the Southern Rockies and parts of the Great Basin and Range Province. The river flows approximately 1,450 miles (2,330 km) into the Gulf of California,^[42] during which over time it has carved out natural phenomena such as the Grand Canyon and created phenomena such as the Salton Sea. The Columbia is a large river, 1,243 miles (2,000 km) long, in central western North America and is the most powerful river on the West Coast of the Americas. In the far northwest of North America, the Yukon drains much of the Alaskan peninsula and flows 1,980 miles (3,190 km)^[43] from parts of Yukon and the Northwest Territory to the Pacific. Draining to the Arctic Ocean in North America, the Mackenzie River drains waters from the great lakes of Canada. This river is the largest in Canada and drains 1,805,200 square kilometres (697,000 sq mi).^[44]

The largest river basin in South America is that of the Amazon, which has the highest volume flow of any river on Earth.^[45] The second largest watershed of South America is that of the Paraná River, which covers about 2.5 million km².^[46]

Climate[link]

The climate of the Americas varies significantly from region to region. Tropical rainforest climate occurs in the latitudes of the Amazon, American Cloud forests, Florida and Darien Gap. In the Rocky Mountains and Andes, a similar climate is observed. Often the higher altitudes of these mountains are snow capped.

Southeastern North America is well known for its occurrence of tornadoes and hurricanes, of which the vast majority of tornadoes occur in the United States' Tornado Alley.^[47] Often parts of the Caribbean are exposed to the violent effects of hurricanes. These weather systems are formed by the collision of dry, cool air from Canada and wet, warm air from the Atlantic.

Demography[link]

Population[link]

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

Largest urban centers[link]

There are three urban centers that each hold titles for being the largest population area based on the three main demographic concepts:^[48]

• The locality with legally fixed boundaries and an administratively recognized urban status that is usually characterized by some form of local government.^{[49][50][51][52][53]}

• Unlike an urban area, a metropolitan area includes not only the urban area, but also satellite cities plus intervening rural land that is socio-economically connected to the urban core city, typically by employment ties through commuting, with the urban core city being the primary labor market.

• An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets. Urban areas are created and further developed by the process of urbanization and do not include large swaths or rural land, as do metropolitan areas.

In accordance with these definitions, the three largest population centers in the Americas are: Mexico City, anchor to the largest metropolitan area in the Americas; New York City, anchor to the largest urban area in the Americas; and São Paulo, the largest city proper in the Americas. All three cities maintain Alpha classification and large scale influence.

Urban Centers within the Americas

Mexico City – Largest metropolitan area in the Americas   New York City – Largest urban area in the Americas   São Paulo – Largest city proper in the Americas

City	Country	Metro Area Pop.	Rank within the Americas	City Proper Pop.	Rank within the Americas	Urban Area Pop.[54]	Rank within the Americas
Mexico City	Mexico	20,450,000	1st	8,873,017	2nd	19,565,000	3rd
New York City	United States	18,897,109	3rd	8,175,133	3rd	20,710,000	1st
São Paulo	Brazil	19,889,559	2nd	11,244,369	1st	20,395,000	2nd

Global cities[link]

The Americas are home to an array of global cities with key importance in finance, politics, and the global economy. Cities such as Los Angeles – the Entertainment Capital of the World – lead the world in entertainment, while others such as New York City, Toronto, San Francisco, and Chicago serve as global financial centers and cities such as Houston are centers for aeronautics and health. Of the global cities in the Americas, the most powerful and highest ranked are located in Northern America.^[55] GaWC ranked the top global cities in the Americas as:

Alpha[link]

• Alpha++ world cities:
  • New York City

• Alpha+ world cities:
  • Chicago

• Alpha world cities:
  • Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, Mexico City, San Francisco, São Paulo, Toronto, Washington D.C.

• Alpha− world cities:
  • Atlanta, Bogotá, Boston, Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia, Santiago,

Beta[link]

• Beta+ world cities:
  • Houston, Montreal, Vancouver

• Beta world cities:
  • Caracas, Lima, Minneapolis, Montevideo, Seattle

• Beta− world cities:
  • Calgary, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Guatemala City, Monterrey, Panama City, Rio de Janeiro, San Diego, San Juan, St. Louis

Gamma[link]

• Gamma+ world cities:
  • Baltimore, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Portland, San José, San Jose

• Gamma world cities:
  • Columbus, Edmonton, Guadalajara, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Quito, San Salvador, Santo Domingo, Tampa

• Gamma− world cities:
  • Austin, Curitiba, George Town, Guayaquil, Milwaukee, Orlando, Ottawa, Porto Alegre, Richmond, Southampton, Tegucigalpa

Global Cities Index[link]

In 2010 the index was updated, and the top American cities of the global 30 ranked were:^[55][56]

Global Power City Index[link]

The Institute for Urban Strategies at The Mori Memorial Foundation in Tokyo, Japan issued a comprehensive study of global cities in 2009. The ranking is based on six overall categories, "Economy", "Research & Development", "Cultural Interaction", "Livability", "Ecology & Natural Environment", and "Accessibility", with 69 individual indicators among them.^[57] This Japanese ranking also breaks down top ten world cities ranked in subjective categories such as "manager, researcher, artist, visitor and resident."

World City Survey[link]

In 2011 the London-based consulting firm Knight Frank LLP, together with Citibank, published a survey of world cities.^[58] The Wealth Report 2011, which included the World City Survey, assessed four parameters—economic activity, political power, knowledge and influence, and quality of life—to rank the world's most influential cities. New York topped the list in economic activity, political power, and knowledge.

Ethnology[link]

The population of the Americas is made up of the descendants of five 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.
• Those of Black African ancestry, mainly of West African descent.
• Asians, that is, those of Eastern, South, and Southeast Asian ancestry.
• Those from the Middle East (Middle Easterners).
• Mestizos, those of mixed European and Amerindian ancestry.
• Mulattoes, people of mixed Black African and European ancestry.
• Zambos (Spanish) or Cafusos (Portuguese), those of mixed Black African and Amerindian ancestry.

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.

Religion[link]

The most prevalent faiths in the Americas are as follows:

• Christianity (North America: 85 percent; South America: 93 percent)^[59]
  • Roman Catholicism (practiced by 88 percent of the Mexican population;^[60] approximately 74 percent of the population of Brazil, whose Roman Catholic population of 182 million is the greatest of any nation's;^[61] approximately 24 percent of the United States population;^[62] and more than 40 percent of all of Canadians)^[63]
  • Protestantism (practiced mostly in United States, where half of the population are Protestant, and Canada, with slightly more than a quarter of the population; there is a growing contingent of Evangelical and Pentecostal movements in predominantly Catholic Latin America)^[64]
  • Eastern Orthodoxy (found mostly in the United States and Canada—1 percent of the U.S. citizenry; this Christian group is growing faster than many other Christian groups in Canada and now represents roughly 3 percent of the Canadian population)^{[citation needed]}
  • Non-denominational Christians and other Christians (some 1,000 different Christian denominations and sects practiced in the Americas)
• Irreligion (includes atheists and agnostics, as well as those who profess some form of spirituality but do not identify themselves as members of any organized religion)
• Islam (practiced by 2 percent of Canadians [580,000 persons]^[65] and 0.6 percent of the U.S. population [1,820,000 persons^[62]]). Together, Muslims constitute about 1 percent of the North American population and 0.3 percent of all Latin Americans. Argentina has the largest Muslim population in Latin America with up to 600,000 persons, or 1.9 percent of the population)^[66]
• Judaism (practiced by 2 percent of North Americans—approximately 2.5 percent of the U.S. population and 1.2 percent of Canadians^[67]—and 0.23 percent of Latin Americans—Argentina has the largest Jewish population in Latin America with 200,000 members)^[68]

Other faiths include Sikhism; Buddhism; Hinduism; Bahá'í; a wide variety of indigenous religions, many of which can be categorized as animistic; new age religions and many African and African-derived religions. Syncretic faiths can also be found throughout the continent.

Languages[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2010)

Languages spoken in the Americas

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-, Dutch- and English-speaking regions also exist in Latin America, notably in French Guiana, Suriname and Belize 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 less 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 US state of Louisiana, and in parts of New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. Spanish has kept an ongoing presence in the Southwestern United States, which formed part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, especially in California and New Mexico, where a distinct variety of Spanish spoken since the 17th century has survived. It has more recently become widely spoken in other 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, geographic differences with Anglo-America, and cultural and historical differences with both regions; English is the primary language of Guyana and Belize, and Dutch is the official and written language of Suriname.

• Spanish: spoken by approximately 310 million in many nations throughout the continent, being the de jure or de facto official language of all the Hispanic American countries.
• English: spoken by approximately 300 million people in the United States, Canada, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, The Bahamas, Bermuda, Belize, Guyana, the Falklands and many islands of the Caribbean.
• Portuguese: spoken by approximately 185 million in South America, mostly Brazil,^[69] and with some important presence in Uruguay and Paraguay (see Dialectos Portugueses del Uruguay and Brasiguayos). It is also spoken by Portuguese communities in the New England/Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States and Venezuela.
• French: spoken by approximately 12 million in Canada (majority 7 million in Québec—see also Québec French—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.^[70]
• Haitian Creole: creole language, based in French and various African languages, spoken by over 10 million in Haiti and the Haitian diaspora in Canada and the United States.^[71]
• Guaraní (avañe'ẽ): native language spoken by approximately 6 million people in Paraguay, and regions of Argentina, Bolivia, and Brazil.
• Chinese languages are spoken by at least 5 million people living mostly in the United States, Canada, Peru, Brazil and Panama.
• Italian: spoken by approximately 4 million people, mostly in Argentina, Brazil, and the New England/Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. It is also spoken in southern Ontario and Quebec in Canada, Uruguay, Venezuela and Mexico. It includes pidgin dialects of Italian such as Talian (Brazil), and Chipilo (Mexico).^{[citation needed]}
• 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 Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay.
• Aymara: native language spoken by some 2.2 million speakers in Bolivia, Peru and Chile.^[72][73]
• Quiché and other Mayan 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. It was the language of the Aztec empire.
• Tagalog has been present in the continent since the Spanish empire. It is now spoken by 1.5 million people mostly living in the United States and Canada.
• Antillean Creole: spoken by approximately 1.2 million in the Eastern Caribbean (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Dominica, Saint Lucia) and French Guiana.
• Vietnamese is spoken by 1 million recent immigrants to the United States.
• Various Indian languages such as Hindi and Punjabi are spoken by Indo-Caribbeans and have large populations in the United States and Canada.
• Korean has recently become a major language in the United States with about 1 million speakers. Also found in Canada, and pockets of Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and other Latin American countries.
• Japanese was once a major minority language in the United States but has recently dwindled in terms of population. Also found in Brazil and Peru.
• Mapudungun (or Mapuche): native language spoken by approximately 440,000 people in Chile and Argentina.
• 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.^[74]
• Garífuna (or Garinagu): native language spoken by the Garífuna people who mostly live in Honduras, but also inhabit parts of the Caribbean coastal regions in Belize, Guatemala, and Nicaragua.
• Dutch: the official language of and universally spoken in Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, Suriname and the Caribbean Netherlands, and by immigrant communities in the United States and Canada.
• Hmong is an indigenous language in Southeast Asia, whose largest number of speakers outside Asia is in the United States (about 200,000). The language originated in Laos of Southeast Asia.
• Navajo: native language spoken by about 178,000 speakers in the Southwest U.S. on the Navajo Nation (Indian reservation).^[75] The tribe's isolation until the early 20th century provided a language used in a military code in World War II.
• Miskito: Spoken by up over 180,000 Miskitos. They are Indigenous people who inhabit the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and the easternmost region of Honduras.
• Javanese is a major language in Suriname, introducted by Indonesian farm laborers by Dutch contractors in the 19th century.
• 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 17th and 18th centuries. They number about 85,000.
• Inuktitut and other Inuit/Eskimo languages: native language spoken by about 75,000 across the North American Arctic and to some extent in the subarctic in Labrador.
• Ojibwe: An Algonquian language spoken by 56,531 in the forested Upper Midwest and southern Canada.
• Danish and Greenlandic (Inuit) are the official languages of Greenland; most of the population speak both of the languages (approximately 50,000 people). A minority of Danish migrants with no Inuit ancestry speak Danish as their first, or only, language.
• Cree: Cree is the name for a group of closely related Algonquian languages spoken by approximately 50,000 speakers across Canada.
• Sioux: Spoken by around 33,000 people in the plains region of the United States and Canada.
• Nicaraguan Creole: Spoken in Nicaragua by up to 30,000 people. It is spoken primarily by persons of African, Amerindian, and European descent on the Caribbean Coast.
• 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 20th century. It is known to possess its own alphabet, the Cherokee syllabary.
• Welsh: Brought to Argentina during the Welsh settlement of River Chubut over the late 19th century.
• 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.
• Sranan Tongo: also known as Taki Taki, is the most used spoken language of Suriname. It is not usually used in its written form. It is a creole language based on Spanish, English, Dutch, Hindustani, and various other languages.

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, however, which has even resulted in completely new languages, such as Papiamento, which is a combination of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch (representing the respective colonizers), native Arawak, various African languages, and, more recently English. Portuñol, a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish, is spoken in the border regions of Brazil and neighboring Spanish-speaking countries.^[76] More specifically, Riverense Portuñol is spoken by around 100,000 people in the border regions of Brazil and Uruguay. Due to 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— and half of the population of Uruguay is thought to be of Italian descent.

Terminology[link]

Subdivisions of the Americas
Map	Legend
	North America (NA)   South America (SA)   May be included in        either NA or SA
	North America (NA)   May be included in NA   Central America   Caribbean   South America
	North America (NA)   May be included in NA        Northern America   Middle America (MA)   Caribbean (may be         included in MA)   South America (SA)   May be included         in MA or SA
	Anglo-America (A-A)   May be included in A-A   Latin America (LA)   May be included in LA

America or Americas[link]

Some uses of the English word America in a hemispherical sense remain, or are translated from other languages as such, as in the names of international organizations.^[77] For instance, the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) in Paris maintains a single continental association for "America", represented by one of the five Olympic rings.^[78]

Speakers of English in the United States of America generally refer to the landmasses of North America and South America as the Western Hemisphere, the New World, or the Americas, to U.S. citizens as Americans and to the United States as America.^[62][79] This sense of America has been primary in English since the 19th century, though not without some ambiguities or uncertainties.^[5] Exclusive use in English of this sense has caused offense to some from Canada or Latin America^[80] who avoid this usage, preferring constructed terms in their languages derived from "United States" or even "North America".^[81][82][83] In Canada, its southern neighbor is often referred to as "the United States", "the U.S.A.", or (informally) "the States," while citizens are generally referred to as Americans.^[82] English dictionaries and compendiums differ regarding usage and rendition.^[84][85][86]

American[link]

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English usage[link]

People who are not connected with the United States rarely call themselves American, but the word is sometimes used by Latin Americans when they are speaking English because they also consider themselves American, and feel that using the term solely for the United States misappropriates it.^[87] When using the word as a demonym, the English-speaking world uses American primarily to refer to a citizen or national of the United States of America. For instance, Canadians abroad typically resent being referred to as Americans,^[82] but some have protested the use of American as a national demonym.^[88]

Spanish usage[link]

The Spanish American colonies at their maximum extent (after the Peace of Paris, 1783)

In Spanish, América is the name of 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 Europa. 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 (rough literal translation: "United Statesian") instead of americano or americana, and the country's name itself is often translated as Estados Unidos de Norteamérica (United States of North America). Also, the term norteamericano (North American) 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.^[89]

Portuguese usage[link]

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. The least ambiguous terms, estadunidense (used in Brazil, something like "United Statesian" or "estadounidense" in Spanish), and "ianque"—the Portuguese version of "Yankee"—are rarely used. América, however, is rarely used as synonym to the country, and almost never in print and in more formal environments, where the country is called either Estados Unidos da América (i.e. United States of America) or simply Estados Unidos (i.e. United States). There is some difference between the usage of these words in Portugal and in Brazil, with the Portuguese being more prone to apply the term América to the country.

French usage[link]

In French, as in English, the word américain can be confusing as it can be used to refer either to the United States, or 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. In Québec, the United States are sometimes called les États or even simply les states in daily informal conversation. However, the use of Amérique to refer to the United States 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. Books by United States authors translated from English are often described as "traduit de l'américain".

Things relating to the United States can be referred to without ambiguity by the words états-unien, étasunien, or étatsunien, although this usage is rare.

Dutch usage[link]

In Dutch, the word Amerika mostly refers to the United States. Although the United States is equally often referred to as de Verenigde Staten or de VS, Amerika relatively rarely refers to the Americas, but it is the only commonly used Dutch word for the Americas. This often leads to ambiguity; and to stress that something concerns the Americas as a whole, Dutch uses a combination, namely Noord- en Zuid-Amerika (North and South America).

Latin America is generally referred to as Latijns Amerika or, less frequently, Midden-Amerika (Central America).

The adjective Amerikaans is most often used for things or people relating to the United States. There are no alternative words to distinguish between things relating to the United States or to the Americas. Dutch uses the local alternative for things relating to elsewhere in the Americas, such as Argentijns for Argentine, etc.

Russian usage[link]

In the 19th century in Russia the word "America" was used for a traditional continent such as Europe and Asia. In the 20th century these traditional continents are known as "parts of the world". Now the term "continent" means any of six large continuous landmasses (Eurasia, Africa, North America, South America, Antarctica, and Australia). Now the word Ameriсa refers to the United States more often than to America as a "part of the world". There is no term equivalent to "Americas" in Russian.

Countries and territories[link]

Map showing the dates of independence from European powers. Black signifies areas that are dependent territories of countries considered non-American

Sovereign states[link]

There are 35 sovereign states in the Americas, 23 in North America and 12 in South America:

Overseas regions, dependencies, colonies[link]

The following is a list of overseas regions, dependencies and other polities in the Americas that do not fall into the category "sovereign states". They are grouped under the states that control them.

Multinational organizations in the Americas[link]

See also[link]

	Geography portal
	North America portal
	South America portal

References[link]