A two-dimensional globe created by Martin Waldseemüller was the earliest recorded use of the term. The name 'America' was first recorded in 1507. It is home to eight megacities ( metropolitan areas with ten million inhabitants or more): New York City (23.9 million), Metropolitan area of the Valley of Mexico (21.2 million), São Paulo (21.2 million), Los Angeles (18.8 million), Buenos Aires (15.6 million), Rio de Janeiro (13.0 million), Bogotá (10.4 million), and Lima (10.1 million).Īmerica is named after Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. The Americas are home to nearly a billion inhabitants, two-thirds of whom reside in the United States, Brazil, and Mexico. Currently, almost all of the population of the Americas resides in independent countries however, the legacy of the colonization and settlement by Europeans is that the Americas share many common cultural traits, most notably Christianity and the use of West European languages: primarily Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, and, to a lesser extent, Dutch. Mass emigration from Europe, including large numbers of indentured servants, and importation of African slaves largely replaced the indigenous peoples.ĭecolonization of the Americas began with the American Revolution in the 1770s and largely ended with the Spanish–American War in the late 1890s. ĭiseases introduced from Europe and West Africa devastated the indigenous peoples, and the European powers colonized the Americas. The Spanish presence involved the enslavement of large numbers of the indigenous population of America. The Spanish voyages of Christopher Columbus from 1492 to 1504 resulted in permanent contact with European (and subsequently, other Old World) powers, which eventually led to the Columbian exchange and inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, and colonization whose effects and consequences persist to the present. However, the colonization never became permanent and was later abandoned.

The first known European settlement in the Americas was by the Norse explorer Leif Erikson. The subsequent migration of the Inuit into the neoarctic around 3500 BCE completed what is generally regarded as the settlement by the indigenous peoples of the Americas. A second migration of Na-Dene speakers followed later from Asia. Humans first settled the Americas from Asia between 42,000 and 17,000 years ago.

Since the Americas extend 14,000 km (8,700 mi) from north to south, the climate and ecology vary widely, from the arctic tundra of Northern Canada, Greenland, and Alaska, to the tropical rain forests in Central America and South America. Lawrence River– Great Lakes basin, Mississippi, and La Plata. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by large river basins, such as the Amazon, St. The topography is dominated by the American Cordillera, a long chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. Īlong with their associated islands, the Americas cover 8% of Earth's total surface area and 28.4% of its land area. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. 1990s CIA political map of the Americas in Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection

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