Welcome to the Americas:

North America, third largest of the seven continents, including Canada (the 2nd largest country in area in the world), the United States (3rd largest), and Mexico (14th largest). The continent also includes Greenland, the largest island, as well as the small French overseas department of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon and the British dependency of Bermuda (both made up of small islands in the Atlantic Ocean). With more than 405 million inhabitants estimate), North America is the 4th most populous continent; the United States ranks 3rd and Mexico 11th in population among the world's countries. Canada and the United States have technologically developed early modern economies, and Mexico, although less technologically developed than its neighbors, contains some of the world's greatest deposits of petroleum and natural gas.

Central America, region of the western hemisphere, made up of a long, tapering isthmus that forms a bridge between North and South America. Central America, which is defined by geographers as part of North America, has an area of about 523,000 sq km (201,930 sq mi) and includes the countries of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. The region has a population of approximately 31,300,000 (1993 estimate).

In strictly geological terms, Central America begins at the narrow Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico. That narrow section divides the volcanic rocks to the north-west from the folded and faulted structures of Central America. The southernmost geological limit of Central America is the Atrato river valley, in Colombia, South America, just east of the Panama border.

South America, the fourth-largest of the Earth's seven continents (after Asia, Africa, and North America), occupying about 17,819,100 sq km (6,880,000 sq mi), or about 12 per cent of the Earth's land surface. It lies across the equator and tropic of Capricorn and is joined by the Isthmus of Panama, on the north, to Central and North America. The continent extends about 7,400 km (4,600 mi) from the Caribbean Sea on the north to Cape Horn on the south, and it spans some 4,830 km (3,000 mi) between its easternmost point, Cabo de São Roque on the Atlantic Ocean, and Punta de Pariñas on the Pacific Ocean.

The continent comprises ten Latin nations (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela), Guyana (formerly a British dependency), Suriname (formerly a Dutch dependency), and French Guiana (an overseas department of France). Located at great distances from the continent in the Pacific Ocean are several territories of South American republics: the Juan Fernández Islands and Easter Island (both Chilean territories) and also the Galápagos Islands (Ecuadorian). Nearer the coast, in the Atlantic Ocean, is the Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, which is a Brazilian territory, and, farther south, the British dependency of the Falkland Islands, which is also claimed by Argentina. The coastline of South America is relatively regular except in the extreme south and south-west, where it is indented by numerous fiords.