America - América

Satellite view of America.

America it is one of the five continents into which the planet is traditionally divided. Due to its breadth, in the tourist world the continent is usually subdivided into three subcontinents:

America It is a double continent, extending for a length of 15,000 km from the Arctic in the north almost to the latitude of Antarctica in the south and includes all the climatic zones of the earth.

The geological structure shows, however, that these two parts are distributed on three continental plates:

  • the North American plate, which also includes the island of Greenland,
  • the South American dish and
  • the smallest Caribbean plate in the middle, whose land mass is also known as Central America . Central America is generally considered to be part of the North American continent.

On the continent of North America are the states of Canada, Mexico and the United States of America, called United States Or simply America. Central America begins in the Mexican peninsula of Yucatán, the states between the Pacific and the Atlantic are also summarized under the term Central America, the island world is known as the Caribbean. South America is located south of the Panama Canal.

Discovery

Errors only have their value here and there.Not everyone who goes to India discovers America
Erich Kästner

The discovery of America usually dates back to 1492 and is attributed to Christopher Columbus, even if he never set foot on the American continent. He believed that he had found a sea route to India, so the islands he discovered were known as the West Indies and its inhabitants as indians . The Italian sailor Giovanni Caboto was probably the first modern European to set foot on the American continent. Name America It dates back to Americo Vespucci, who first described the country as an independent continent in 1507.

However, there are also numerous references to earlier European explorers, see Wikipedia: Discovery of America, and the first discoverers were likely to have been the people who set foot on American soil as Paleo-Indians at the end of the last Ice Age.

Spoken languages

Many languages ​​are spoken in the Americas. Some of them are of European origin, others are indigenous languages ​​or a mixture of many different languages. The dominant language in Latin America is Spanish, however the largest country in Latin America, Brazil, uses Portuguese. There are a number of small French, Dutch and English speaking lands in Latin America, French Guyana, Suriname and Belize, respectively, predominantly Haitian Creole, a language of French origin. Indigenous languages ​​have more influence in Latin America than in Anglo America, the most widely used languages ​​being Nahuatl, Quechua, Aymara and Guaraní. The dominant language of Anglo America is English. French is also an official language of Canada and is the dominant language in Québec and an official language in New Brunswick alongside English. Known French is also an important language in Louisiana and parts of New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont, (USA). Spain has maintained a continuous presence in the southwestern United States, which is part of the vice-kingdom of New Spain, especially in California and New Mexico, where a language of Spain has been transformed from the 17th century still exists. Dictionary Spain also flourished in the United States due to the influx of immigrants from Latin American countries. The countries of Guyana, Suriname, and Belize are not considered Anglo-Saxon or Latin American due to Latin American language differences and Anglo American geographic differences, and culture and history. both regions; English is the primary language in Guyana and Belize, and Dutch is the official language and the writing language in Suriname.

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