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80-633: The Americas Society is an organization dedicated to education, debate, and dialogue on the Americas . It is located at 680 Park Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan , and was established by David Rockefeller in 1965. The Americas Society promotes the understanding of the economic , political , and social issues confronting Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada; its mission

160-490: A language isolate . In order to emphasise the exclusion of Haida, Campbell refers to the language family as Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit rather than Na-Dene . In 2010 Jeff Leer published extensive primary materials on what he calls PAET (Proto-Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit). In 2008, Edward Vajda of Western Washington University presented evidence suggesting that the Na-Dene languages (Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit) might be related to

240-408: A sea level rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age. Both routes may have been taken, although the genetic evidences suggests a single founding population. The micro-satellite diversity and distributions specific to South American Indigenous peoples indicates that certain populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region. A second migration occurred after

320-412: A combination of three distinct classes of morphemes and are not found in any other Native American language family. The phoneme system contains a large number of dorsal (velar or uvular) consonants (fronting in many modern Athabaskan languages to palatals and velars, correspondingly) as well as a general absence of labial obstruents (except where /b/ has arisen from *w). In the historical phonology there

400-573: A few hidden documents remain today, leaving modern historians with glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge. The first inhabitants migrated into the Americas from Asia. Habitation sites are known in Alaska and Yukon from at least 20,000 years ago, with suggested ages of up to 40,000 years. Beyond that, the specifics of the Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including

480-577: A landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America . When viewed as a single continent, the Americas or America is the 2nd largest continent right after Asia, and is the 3rd largest continent by population. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth 's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World . Along with their associated islands , the Americas cover 8% of Earth's total surface area and 28.4% of its land area. The topography

560-427: A million years, with the total spread of South American genera into North America far more limited in scope than the spread of North American genera into South America. There are 35 sovereign states in the Americas, as well as an autonomous country of Denmark , three overseas departments of France , three overseas collectivities of France, and one uninhabited territory of France, eight overseas territories of

640-485: A number of islands. The gaps in the archipelago of Central America filled in with material eroded off North America and South America, plus new land created by continued volcanism. By three million years ago, the continents of North America and South America were linked by the Isthmus of Panama , thereby forming the single landmass of the Americas. The Great American Interchange resulted in many species being spread across

720-521: A number of other well-known linguists, including Bernard Comrie , Johanna Nichols , Victor Golla, Michael Fortescue , and Eric Hamp . The conclusion of this seminar was that the comparison with Yeniseic data shows that Haida cannot be classified in a genealogical unit with Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit. A link between the Na–Dené languages and Sino-Tibetan languages, known as Sino–Dené was proposed by Edward Sapir . Around 1920 Sapir became convinced that Na-Dené

800-595: A proposal connecting Na-Dene (excluding Haida) to the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia into a Dené–Yeniseian family was published and well received by a number of linguists. It was proposed in a 2014 paper that the Na-Dene languages of North America and the Yeniseian languages of Siberia had a common origin in a language spoken in Beringia , between the two continents. Edward Sapir originally constructed

880-722: A series of rivers and streams that flow east with their terminus in the Atlantic Ocean, such as the Hudson River , Saint John River , and Savannah River . A similar instance arises with central Canadian rivers that drain into Hudson Bay ; the largest being the Churchill River . On the west coast of North America, the main rivers are the Colorado River , Columbia River , Yukon River , Fraser River , and Sacramento River . The Colorado River drains much of

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960-541: A shared population of flora and fauna around 2.5 million years ago, when continental drift brought the two continents into contact via the Isthmus of Panama . Initially, the exchange of biota was roughly equal, with North American genera migrating into South America in about the same proportions as South American genera migrated into North America. This exchange is known as the Great American Interchange . The exchange became lopsided after roughly

1040-652: A synonym). Latin America is typically contrasted with Anglo-America , where English, a Germanic language , is prevalent, and which comprises Canada (with the exception of Francophone Canada rooted in Latin Europe [France]—see Quebec and Acadia ) and the United States. Both countries are located in North America, with cultures deriving predominantly from British and other Germanic roots. The transatlantic slave trade brought millions of Africans to

1120-453: A wide variety of indigenous religions, many of which can be categorized as animistic ; new age religions and many African and African-derived religions. Syncretic faiths can also be found throughout the Americas. Various languages are spoken in the Americas. Some are of European origin, others are spoken by indigenous peoples or are the mixture of various languages like the different creoles. The most widely spoken first language in

1200-677: Is "to increase public awareness and appreciation of the diverse cultural heritage of the Americas and the importance of the inter-American relationship." The Americas Society Building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places . The building was previously the Percy Rivington Pyne House before serving as the Soviet Mission to the United Nations until its current usage. Along with

1280-507: Is a wide-spread Athabaskan term for “person, people”; the element *-ne ( *-n , *-η ) which forms part of it is an old stem for “person, people” which, as suffix or prefix, is frequently used in Athabaskan in that sense. It is cognate with H. [= Haida] na "to dwell; house" and Tl. [= Tlingit] na “people”. The compound term Na-dene thus designates by means of native stems the speakers of the three languages concerned, besides continuing

1360-503: Is a widespread tendency, observable across many Athabaskan languages, for phonemic tonal distinctions to arise from glottal features originally found at the end of the syllable. The glottal features in question are often evident in Eyak or Tlingit. These languages are typologically unusual in containing extensive prefixation yet being SOV and postpositional, features normally associated with suffixing languages. A genealogical connection between

1440-523: Is dominated by the American Cordillera , a long chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by large river basins, such as the Amazon , St. Lawrence River – Great Lakes , Mississippi , and La Plata basins. Since the Americas extend 14,000 km (8,700 mi) from north to south, the climate and ecology vary widely, from

1520-470: Is generally quite flat. Similarly, the north-east of South America is covered by the flat Amazon basin . The Brazilian Highlands on the east coast are fairly smooth but show some variations in landform, while farther south the Gran Chaco and Pampas are broad lowlands . The climate of the Americas varies significantly from region to region. Tropical rainforest climate occurs in the latitudes of

1600-600: Is one of the three main groups of Native languages spoken in the Americas. Contemporary supporters of Greenberg's theory, such as Merritt Ruhlen , have suggested that the Na-Dené language family represents a distinct migration of people from Asia into the New World that occurred six to eight thousand years ago, placing it around four thousand years later than the previous migration into the Americas by Amerind speakers; this remains an unproven hypothesis. Ruhlen speculates that

1680-691: Is that of the Mississippi , covering the second largest watershed on the planet. The Mississippi-Missouri river system drains most of 31 states of the United States, most of the Great Plains , and large areas between the Rocky and Appalachian mountains. This river is the fourth longest in the world and tenth most powerful in the world . In North America, to the east of the Appalachian Mountains , there are no major rivers but rather

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1760-481: The Amazon , American cloud forests , southeastern Florida and Darién Gap . In the Rocky Mountains and Andes , dry and continental climates are observed. Often the higher altitudes of these mountains are snow-capped. Southeastern North America is well known for its occurrence of tornadoes and hurricanes , of which the vast majority of tornadoes occur in the United States' Tornado Alley , as well as in

1840-592: The American Southwest as far as northern Mexico . The southwestern division of Athabaskan is also called Southern Athabaskan or Apachean , and includes Navajo and all the Apache languages. Eyak was spoken in south-central Alaska; the last first language speaker died in 2008. Navajo is by far the most widely spoken language of the Na-Dene family, spoken in Arizona , New Mexico , and other regions of

1920-715: The Arctic small tool tradition , a broad cultural entity that developed along the Alaska Peninsula , around Bristol Bay , and on the eastern shores of the Bering Strait c.  2500 BCE moved into North America. The Arctic small tool tradition, a Paleo-Eskimo culture branched off into two cultural variants, including the Pre-Dorset , and the Independence traditions of Greenland. The descendants of

2000-708: The Boothia Peninsula in northern Canada and Cape Froward in Chilean Patagonia , is roughly 14,000 km (8,700 mi). The mainland's most westerly point is the end of the Seward Peninsula in Alaska; Attu Island , further off the Alaskan coast to the west, is considered the westernmost point of the Americas. Ponta do Seixas in northeastern Brazil forms the easternmost extremity of

2080-646: The Columbian exchange and inaugurated a period of exploration , conquest, and colonization whose effects and consequences persist to the present. The Spanish presence involved the enslavement of large numbers of the indigenous population of America. Diseases introduced from Europe and West Africa devastated the indigenous peoples , and the European powers colonized the Americas . Mass emigration from Europe , including large numbers of indentured servants , and importation of African slaves largely replaced

2160-495: The Latin version of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci 's first name. The feminine form America was originally used to refer to the newly discovered continent, which is why it was accorded with the feminine names of the other continents: Asia , Africa , and Europa . Since the 1950s, however, North America and South America have generally been considered by English speakers as separate continents, and taken together are called

2240-595: The MetLife Music of the Americas (concert series) to showcase the diversity of styles and genres of music in the Americas. The concert series is held at the Society’s headquarters. The Americas Society, together with Council of the Americas , produces the publication Americas Quarterly , a policy journal for the Western Hemisphere. The Americas Society also published Review: Literature and Arts of

2320-574: The Quaternary glaciation . These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats , they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by

2400-708: The Southern Rockies and parts of the Basin and Range Province . The river flows approximately 1,450 miles (2,330 km) into the Gulf of California , during which over time it has carved out natural phenomena such as the Grand Canyon and created phenomena such as the Salton Sea . The Columbia is a large river, 1,243 miles (2,000 km) long, in central western North America and is the most powerful river on

2480-668: The United Kingdom , three constituent countries of the Netherlands , three public bodies of the Netherlands, two unincorporated territories of the United States , and one uninhabited territory of the United States. In 2021 the total population of the Americas was about 1.03 billion people, divided as follows: There are three urban centers that each hold titles for being the largest population area based on

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2560-638: The Yeniseian (or Yeniseic) languages of Siberia , the only living representative of which is the Ket language . Key evidence by current comparative methodologies includes homologies in verb prefixes and also a systematic correspondence between the distribution of Ket tones and consonant articulations found in Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit. Vajda's paper has been favorably reviewed by several experts on Na-Dene and Yeniseic languages, including Michael Krauss , Jeff Leer, James Kari , and Heinrich Werner, as well as

2640-497: The American Southwest. All of these languages share a highly complex prefixing verb structure in which tense and mood markers are interdigitated between subject and object agreement markers. The morphological hallmark of the family is a series of prefixes found directly before the verb root that raise or lower the transitivity of the verb word. These prefixes, traditionally known as "classifiers", derive historically from

2720-957: The American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the Early Modern period . The term Pre-Columbian is used especially often in the context of the great indigenous civilizations of the Americas , such as those of Mesoamerica ( Olmec , Toltec , Teotihuacano , Zapotec , Mixtec , Aztec , Maya ) and the Andean civilizations ( Inca , Moche , Chavín , Muisca , Cañari ). Many pre-Columbian civilizations established characteristics and hallmarks which included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies . Some of these civilizations had long faded by

2800-405: The Americas founded in 1968. Review is an English-language journal for literature from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada. Review also helped support the first English translation of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez as well as other translations. Americas The Americas , sometimes collectively called America , known initially as India Nova , are

2880-495: The Americas , or more rarely America . When conceived as a unitary continent, the form is generally the continent of America in the singular. However, without a clarifying context, singular America in English commonly refers to the United States of America . The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on

2960-476: The Americas began with the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492. The first Spanish settlement in the Americas was La Isabela in northern Hispaniola . This town was abandoned shortly after in favor of Santo Domingo de Guzmán , founded in 1496, the oldest American city of European foundation. This was the base from which the Spanish monarchy administered its new colonies and their expansion. Santo Domingo

3040-534: The Americas is Spanish , followed by English and Portuguese . The dominant language of Latin America is Spanish, though the most populous nation in Latin America, Brazil , speaks Portuguese . Small enclaves of French -, Dutch - and English-speaking regions also exist in Latin America, notably in French Guiana , Suriname , and Belize and Guyana respectively. Haitian Creole is dominant in

3120-597: The Americas is made up of the descendants of four large ethnic groups and their combinations. The majority of the population lives in Latin America , named for its predominant cultures, rooted in Latin Europe (including the two dominant languages, Spanish and Portuguese , both Romance languages ), more specifically in the Iberian nations of Portugal and Spain (hence the use of the term Ibero-America as

3200-489: The Americas, such as the cougar , porcupine , opossums , armadillos , and hummingbirds . The geography of the western Americas is dominated by the American Cordillera , with the Andes running along the west coast of South America and the Rocky Mountains and other North American Cordillera ranges running along the western side of North America. The 2,300-kilometer-long (1,400 mi) Appalachian Mountains run along

3280-576: The Americas. Migration continued as people moved to the Americas fleeing religious persecution or seeking economic opportunities. Millions of individuals were forcibly transported to the Americas as slaves , prisoners or indentured servants . Decolonization of the Americas began with the American Revolution and the Haitian Revolution in the late 1700s. This was followed by numerous Latin American wars of independence in

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3360-603: The Atlantic Ocean. The Mackenzie River is the largest in Canada and drains 1,805,200 square kilometers (697,000 sq mi). The largest river basin in South America is that of the Amazon , which has the highest volume flow of any river on Earth. The second largest watershed of South America is that of the Paraná River , which covers about 2.5 million km . North America and South America began to develop

3440-674: The Caribbean began to achieve peaceful independence well after World War II . Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago became independent in 1962, and Guyana and Barbados both achieved independence in 1966. In the 1970s, the Bahamas , Grenada , Dominica , St. Lucia , and St. Vincent and the Grenadines all became independent of the United Kingdom, and Suriname became independent of the Netherlands. Belize , Antigua and Barbuda , and Saint Kitts and Nevis achieved independence from

3520-495: The East Asia area such as Hmong-Mien, Altaic (which is actually a sprachbund ), Austroasiatic, Kra-Dai, Austronesian came through contact; but as there has been no recent contact between Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dené, and Yeniseian language families then any similarities these groups share must be residual. According to Joseph Greenberg 's controversial classification of the languages of Native North America, Na-Dené (including Haida)

3600-534: The Hudson River Valley, and what later became New Jersey. The spread of new diseases brought by Europeans and African slaves killed many of the inhabitants of North America and South America, with a general population crash of Native Americans occurring in the mid-16th century, often well ahead of European contact. One of the most devastating diseases was smallpox . European immigrants were often part of state-sponsored attempts to found colonies in

3680-503: The Na-Dene languages, while mostly closely related to other North American indigenous peoples, derive around 10% of their ancestry from a Siberian source closely related to Koryaks not found in other Native American groups. The contact between the ancestors of Na-Dene speakers and this Siberian group is suggested to have occurred around 9,000-5,500 years ago. The urheimat (origin point of the family) has been suggested to have been in Alaska. A large southward migration of Athabaskan peoples

3760-545: The Na-Dené speakers may have arrived in boats, initially settling near the Haida Gwaii , now in British Columbia , Canada. Bouda, in various publications in the 1930s through the 1950s, described a linguistic network that (besides Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan) also included Caucasian , and Burushaski , some forms of which have gone by the name of Sino-Caucasian. The works of R. Bleichsteiner and O.G. Tailleur,

3840-602: The Norse colonies and Europe was maintained, as James Watson Curran states: From 985 to 1410, Greenland was in touch with the world. Then silence. In 1492 the Vatican noted that no news of that country "at the end of the world" had been received for 80 years, and the bishopric of the colony was offered to a certain ecclesiastic if he would go and "restore Christianity" there. He didn't go. Although there had been previous trans-oceanic contact , large-scale European colonization of

3920-778: The Pre-Dorset cultural group, the Dorset culture was displaced by the final migrants from the Bering sea coast line, the Thule people (the ancestors of modern Inuit ), by 1000  CE . Around the same time as the Inuit migrated into Greenland, Viking settlers began arriving in Greenland in 982 and Vinland shortly thereafter, establishing a settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows , near the northernmost tip of Newfoundland . Contact between

4000-538: The Sino–Dené hypothesis. Caveney considered a link between Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dené, and Yeniseian to be plausible but did not support the hypothesis that Sino-Tibetan and Na-Dené were related to the Caucasian languages (Sino–Caucasian and Dené–Caucasian). A 2023 analysis by David Bradley using the standard techniques of comparative linguistics supports a distant genetic link between the Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dené, and Yeniseian language families. Bradley argues that any similarities Sino-Tibetan shares with other language families of

4080-436: The Tlingit, Eyak and Athabaskan languages was suggested early in the 19th century, but not universally accepted until much later. Haida , with 15 fluent speakers (M. Krauss, 1995), was originally linked to Tlingit by Franz Boas in 1894. Both Haida and Tlingit were then connected to Athabaskan by Edward Sapir in 1915. Linguists such as Lyle Campbell (1997) today consider the evidence inconclusive. They have classified Haida as

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4160-496: The United Kingdom in the 1980s. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere . The northernmost point of the Americas is Kaffeklubben Island , which is the most northerly point of land on Earth. The southernmost point is the islands of Southern Thule , although they are sometimes considered part of Antarctica . The mainland of the Americas is the world's longest north-to-south landmass. The distance between its two polar extremities, Murchison Promontory on

4240-421: The United Kingdom, starting with the Balfour Declaration of 1926 , Statute of Westminster 1931 , and ending with the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982. The Dominion of Newfoundland similarly achieved independence under the Balfour Declaration and Statute of Westminster, but relinquished self-rule in 1934. It was subsequently confederated with Canada in 1949. The remaining European colonies in

4320-496: The United States, and more specifically in the US state of Colorado . The highest peaks of the Americas are located in the Andes , with Aconcagua of Argentina being the highest; in North America Denali (Mount McKinley) in the US state of Alaska is the tallest. Between its coastal mountain ranges, North America has vast flat areas. The Interior Plains spread over much of the continent, with low relief. The Canadian Shield covers almost 5 million km of North America and

4400-433: The West Coast of the Americas. In the far northwest of North America, the Yukon drains much of the Alaskan peninsula and flows 1,980 miles (3,190 km) from parts of Yukon and the Northwest Territory to the Pacific. Draining to the Arctic Ocean of Canada, the Mackenzie River drains waters from the Arctic Great Lakes of Arctic Canada, as opposed to the Saint-Lawrence River that drains the Great Lakes of Southern Canada into

4480-417: The arctic tundra of Northern Canada , Greenland , and Alaska , to the tropical rainforests in Central America and South America. Humans first settled the Americas from Asia between 20,000 and 16,000 years ago. A second migration of Na-Dene speakers followed later from Asia. The subsequent migration of the Inuit into the neoarctic c.  3500 BCE completed what is generally regarded as

4560-423: The dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. Widespread habitation of the Americas occurred after the Late Glacial Maximum , from 16,000 to 13,000 years ago. The traditional theory has been that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska around 40,000–17,000 years ago, when sea levels were significantly lowered during

4640-473: The early 1800s. Between 1811 and 1825, Paraguay , Argentina , Chile , Gran Colombia , the United Provinces of Central America , Mexico , Brazil , Peru , and Bolivia gained independence from Spain and Portugal in armed revolutions. After the Dominican Republic won independence from Haiti , it was re-annexed by Spain in 1861, but reclaimed its independence in 1865 at the conclusion of the Dominican Restoration War . The last violent episode of decolonization

4720-414: The east coast of North America from Alabama to Newfoundland . North of the Appalachians, the Arctic Cordillera runs along the eastern coast of Canada. The largest mountain ranges are the Andes and Rocky Mountains . The Sierra Nevada and the Cascade Range reach similar altitudes as the Rocky Mountains , but are significantly smaller. In North America, the greatest number of fourteeners are in

4800-518: The first half of the 16th century, Spanish colonists conducted raids throughout the Caribbean Basin , bringing captives from Central America, northern South America, and Florida back to Hispaniola and other Spanish settlements. France, led by Jacques Cartier and Giovanni da Verrazzano , focused primarily on North America. English explorations of the Americas were led by Giovanni Caboto and Sir Walter Raleigh . The Dutch in New Netherland confined their operations to Manhattan Island, Long Island,

4880-447: The indigenous peoples in much of the Americas. Decolonization of the Americas began with the American Revolution in the 1770s and largely ended with the Spanish–American War in the late 1890s. 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

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4960-402: The initial peopling of the Americas; Na Dene speakers found predominantly in North American groups at varying genetic rates with the highest frequency found among the Athabaskans at 42% derive from this second wave. Linguists and biologists have reached a similar conclusion based on analysis of Amerindian language groups and ABO blood group system distributions. Then the people of

5040-455: The late Sergei A. Starostin and Sergei L. Nikolayev have sought to confirm these connections. Others who have developed the hypothesis, often expanded to Dené–Caucasian, include J.D. Bengtson, V. Blažek, J.H. Greenberg (with M. Ruhlen ), and M. Ruhlen. George Starostin continues his father's work in Yeniseian, Sino-Caucasian and other fields. This theory is very controversial or viewed as obsolete by other linguists. Speakers of

5120-421: The mainland, while Nordostrundingen , in Greenland, is the most easterly point of the continental shelf. South America broke off from the west of the supercontinent Gondwana around 135 million years ago, forming its own continent. Around 15 million years ago, the collision of the Caribbean Plate and the Pacific Plate resulted in the emergence of a series of volcanoes along the border that created

5200-444: The nation of Haiti , where French is also spoken. Native languages are more prominent in Latin America than in Anglo-America , with Nahuatl , Quechua , Aymara , and Guaraní as the most common. Various other native languages are spoken with less frequency across both Anglo-America and Latin America. Creole languages other than Haitian Creole are also spoken in parts of Latin America. Na-Dene languages In February 2008,

5280-514: The neighboring buildings of the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute and the Italian Consulate General, the house constitutes one of the few remaining unified architectural ensembles on Park Avenue . The Center for Inter-American Relations was later to be absorbed into Americas Society in 1985. The Americas Society organizes interviews, speeches, podcasts , exhibitions, readings, and musical performances at its headquarters and reports on Congressional updates, and local events. The Americas Society produces

5360-412: The settlement by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas . The first known European settlement in the Americas was by the Norse explorer Leif Erikson . However, the colonization never became permanent and was later abandoned. 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

5440-443: The southerly Dixie Alley in the North American late-winter and early spring seasons. Often parts of the Caribbean are exposed to the violent effects of hurricanes. These weather systems are formed by the collision of dry, cool air from Canada and wet, warm air from the Atlantic. With coastal mountains and interior plains, the Americas have several large river basins that drain the continents. The largest river basin in North America

5520-439: The term Na-Dene to refer to a combined family of Athabaskan, Tlingit, and Haida (the existence of the Eyak language was not known to him at the time). In his “The Na-Dene languages: A preliminary report”, he describes how he arrived at the term (Sapir 1915, p. 558): The name that I have chosen for the stock, Na-dene , may be justified by reference to no. 51 of the comparative vocabulary. Dene , in various dialectic forms,

5600-410: The territories of the Americas under the colonial rule of European powers. In South America, Portugal played a significant role in the trafficking of enslaved Africans, with estimates suggesting that around 40% of all Africans forcibly brought to the Americas were taken to Brazil alone, to work primarily in sugar cane plantations, mining, and agricultural endeavors. In North America, the British Empire

5680-424: The three main demographic concepts: In accordance with these definitions, the three largest population centers in the Americas are: Mexico City , anchor to the largest metropolitan area in the Americas; New York City, anchor to the largest urban area in the Americas; and São Paulo, the largest city proper in the Americas. All three cities maintain Alpha classification and large scale influence. The population of

5760-533: The time of the first permanent European arrivals ( c.  late 15th –early 16th centuries), and are known only through archeological investigations. Others were contemporary with this period, and are also known from historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya, had their own written records. However, most Europeans of the time viewed such texts as pagan, and much was destroyed in Christian pyres. Only

5840-663: The use of West European languages: primarily Spanish , English , Portuguese , French , and, to a lesser extent, Dutch . The Americas are home to more than a billion inhabitants, two-thirds of whom reside in the United States , Brazil , and Mexico . It is home to eight megacities ( metropolitan areas with 10 million inhabitants or more): Greater Mexico City (21.2 million), São Paulo (21.2 million), New York City (19.7 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). The name "America"

5920-683: The use of the old term Dene for the Athabaskan branch of the stock. In its uncontroversial core, Na-Dene consists of two branches, Tlingit and Athabaskan–Eyak: For linguists who follow Edward Sapir in connecting Haida to the above languages, Haida represents an additional branch, with Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit together forming the other. Dene or Dine (the Athabaskan languages) is a widely distributed group of Native languages spoken by associated peoples in Alberta , British Columbia , Manitoba , Northwest Territories , Nunavut , Saskatchewan , Yukon , Alaska , parts of Oregon , northern California , and

6000-566: Was first recorded in 1507. A two-dimensional globe created by Martin Waldseemüller was the earliest recorded use of the term. The name was also used (together with the related term Amerigen ) in the Cosmographiae Introductio , apparently written by Matthias Ringmann , in reference to South America. It was applied to both North and South America by Gerardus Mercator in 1538. "America" derives from Americus ,

6080-440: Was heavily involved in the transatlantic slave trade, with the establishment of colonies such as Virginia, where enslaved Africans were primarily used as labor in tobacco plantations and later in other agricultural and domestic sectors. This system perpetuated for centuries, shaping the socio-economic landscape of all nations of the hemisphere. After the Haitian Revolution led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines , which started in 1791 and

6160-595: Was more closely related to Sino-Tibetan than to other American families. He wrote a series of letters to Alfred Kroeber where he enthusiastically spoke of a connection between Na-Dene and "Indo-Chinese". In 1925, a supporting article summarizing his thoughts, albeit not written by him, entitled "The Similarities of Chinese and Indian Languages", was published in Science Supplements. Edward Vajda's Dené–Yeniseian proposal renewed interest among linguists such as Geoffrey Caveney (2014) to look into support for

6240-570: Was subject to frequent raids by English and French pirates . On the continent, Panama City on the Pacific coast of Central America, founded on August 15, 1519, played an important role, being the base for the Spanish conquest of South America. Conquistador Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón established San Miguel de Guadalupe , the first European settlement in what is now the United States , on the Pee Dee River in South Carolina . During

6320-647: Was the Cuban War of Independence which became the Spanish–American War , which resulted in the independence of Cuba in 1898, and the transfer of sovereignty over Puerto Rico from Spain to the United States. Peaceful decolonization began with the United States's purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803, Florida from Spain in 1819, of Alaska from Russia in 1867, and the Danish West Indies from Denmark in 1916. Canada became independent of

6400-505: Was the only successful slave revolt in history, the world's first black republic was established. It started with the massacre of the white population, between 3,000 and 5,000 white men and women of all ages were killed. Dessalines declared: — Dessalines, first president of the Republic of Haiti, 1804 The most prevalent faiths in the Americas are as follows: Other faiths include Buddhism ; Hinduism ; Sikhism ; Baháʼí Faith ;

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