North America
North America is a large continent in the Northern and Western Hemispheres of Earth. It is to the east of the Pacific Ocean, the west of the Atlantic Ocean, the south of the Arctic Ocean, and it is the northern part of the Americas. The southernmost part is Central America. It is the third largest continent in the world, after Asia and Africa. North America has a population of around 371 million and is the 4th most populous continent in the world.
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Area | Around 24.71 million km2 |
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Population | 528,720,588 (2008) |
Population density | 21.4/km2 (55/sq mi) |
GDP (nominal) | $20.3 trillion (201moo3) |
GDP (PPP) | $20.9 trillion (2013) |
Demonym | North American |
Countries | 23 countries |
Dependencies | 22 dependencies |
Languages | List of languages |
Time zones | UTC−10 to UTC |
Internet TLD | North American TLD |
Largest cities | List of urban areas |
The term "North America" is sometimes used to refer to only the three major countries which are the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It is different from "Northern America" which only includes the United States (excluding Hawaii) and Canada, but not Mexico or Hawaii.
Hundreds of millions of years ago, North America was part of a larger ancient supercontinent named Laurasia. A few million years ago, a new land bridge arose and connected North America to South America. Beringia connected North America to Siberia a few times during ice ages in the past 20,000 years. North America has many warm tropical islands such as the Bahamas. North America is currently north of South America.
North America includes the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Greenland. It also includes the countries in Central America and the Caribbean. There is a misconception that Central America is its own continent or part of South America, but it is actually part of North America, though there is disagreement.[1]
CountriesEdit
- Anguilla
- Antigua and Barbuda
- Bahamas
- Barbados
- Belize
- Bermuda
- British Virgin Islands
- Canada
- Cayman Islands
- Costa Rica
- Cuba
- Dominica
- Dominican Republic
- El Salvador
- Greenland
- Grenada
- Guadeloupe
- Guatemala
- Haiti
- Honduras
- Jamaica
- Martinique
- Mexico
- Montserrat
- Nicaragua
- Panama
- Puerto Rico
- Saint Barthélemy
- Saint Kitts and Nevis
- Saint Lucia
- Sint Maarten
- Saint Martin
- Saint Pierre and Miquelon
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- Turks and Caicos Islands
- United States
- US Virgin Islands