America is the second continent with the largest territorial extension (the first is Asia), thus occupying a large part of the western hemisphere of planet earth, with an area of more than 42,000,000 km², occupying 8.3% of the total surface of the planet and 30.2% of the emerged land. Its name comes from the Italian navigator named Americo Vespucci, who was one of the first European explorers of the continent. This continent is located in the Western Hemisphere, between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bounded on the south by the Drake Passage, where it has the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and on the north by the Arctic Glacial Ocean.
At present America is divided into three blocks which are North America that extends from the Arctic Sea to the Neovolcanic Mountain Range, with an area of 23,633,760 km, and a population for the year 1996 of 388,073,000, Central America that extends from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to the Barranca del Atraco, in northwestern Colombia, plus Insular or Antillean America, with an area of 758,800 km and a population of 68,302,000 and finally South America, occupying the southern part of the Western hemisphere with an area of 17,854,440 km; subdivided into 35 independent countries and 16 dependent territories. Thecountry with the largest territory in America is Canada, which has 9,970,610 km, followed by the United States with 9,372,614 km, which includes Alaska and Hawaii and Brazil with 8,511,965 km; in Central America the largest country is Mexico with 1,958,201 km, followed by Guatemala, with 108,889 km in the Antilles, the country with the largest extension is Cuba, which has 110,860 km and in South America, the largest country after Brazil is Argentina, with 2,766,889 km.
Several sources allege that this continent began to have significant contact as of the year 1942 with the arrival of Christopher Columbus, however there are traces of Viking settlements dating from the 11th century. As for the climate, since this land mass has this great extension from north to south, and from east to west, it has almost all of the existing climates. It should be noted that America is the third most populated continent after Asia and Africa, but it is also one of the least densely populated, this is due to its large area and three-quarters of the population live in cities.
