North America

The North American continent is growing in the west as a result of collision with the Pacific plate. On the east of the wide area of the Ozark Plateau shield lie the Appalachian Mountains, showing where the continent once collided with another continent. The eastern coastal rifting formed when the continents broke apart. On the western edge, new impact mountains have formed.

Political map of North America.

Third largest of the continents (including Greenland and Central America), and over twice the size of Europe.

Area

24,000,000 sq km/9,400,000 sq mi

Largest cities

(population over 1 million) Mexico City, New York, Chicago, Toronto, Los Angeles, Montréal, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Philadelphia, Houston, Guatemala City, Vancouver, Detroit, San Diego, Dallas

Physical

occupying the northern part of the landmass of the Western hemisphere between the Arctic Ocean and the tropical southeast tip of the isthmus that joins Central America to South America; the northernmost point on the mainland is the tip of Boothia Peninsula in the Canadian Arctic; the northernmost point on adjacent islands is Cape Morris Jesup on Greenland; the most westerly point on the mainland is Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska; the most westerly point on adjacent islands is Attu Island in the Aleutians; the most easterly point on the mainland lies on the southeast coast of Labrador; the highest point is Mount McKinley, Alaska, 6,194 m/20,320 ft; the lowest point is Badwater in Death Valley −86 m/−282 ft.

Perhaps the most dominating characteristic is the western cordillera running parallel to the coast from Alaska to Panama; it is called the Rocky Mountains in the USA and Canada and its continuation into Mexico is called the Sierra Madre. The cordillera is a series of ranges divided by intermontane plateaus and takes up about one-third of the continental area.

To the east of the cordillera lie the Great Plains, the agricultural heartland of North America, which descend in a series of steps to the depressions occupied by the Great Lakes in the east and the Gulf of Mexico coastal lowlands in the southeast. The Plains are characterized by treeless expanses crossed by broad, shallow river valleys. To the north and east of the region lie the Canadian Highlands, an ancient plateau or shield area. Glaciation has deeply affected its landscape. In the east are the Appalachian Mountains, flanked by the narrow coastal plain which widens further south. Erosion here has created a line of planed crests, or terraces, at altitudes between 300–1,200 m/985–3,935 ft. This has also formed a ridge-and-valley topography which was an early barrier to continental penetration. The Fall Line is the abrupt junction of plateau and coastal plain in the east

Features

Lake Superior (the largest body of fresh water in the world); Grand Canyon on the Colorado River; Redwood National Park, California, has some of the world's tallest trees; San Andreas Fault, California; deserts: Death Valley, Mojave, Sonoran; rivers (over 1,600 km/1,000 mi) include Mississippi, Missouri, Mackenzie, Rio Grande, Yukon, Arkansas, Colorado, Saskatchewan-Bow, Columbia, Red, Peace, Snake

Population

(1990 est) 395 million, rising to an estimated 450 million by the year 2000; annual growth rate from 1980 to 1985: Canada 1.08%, USA 0.88%, Mexico 2.59%, Honduras 3.39%; the American Indian, Inuit, and Aleut peoples are now a minority within a population predominantly of European immigrant origin. Many Africans were brought in as part of the slave trade

Language

English predominates in Canada, the USA, and Belize; Spanish is the chief language of the countries of Latin America and a sizeable minority in the USA; French is spoken by about 25% of the population of Canada, and by people of the French possession of St Pierre and Miquelon; indigenous non-European minorities, including the Inuit of Arctic Canada, the Aleuts of Alaska, North American Indians, and the Maya of Central America, have their own languages and dialects

Religion

Christian and Jewish religions predominate; 97% of Latin Americans, 47% of Canadians, and 21% of those living in the USA are Roman Catholic

Low plains on the Atlantic coast are indented by the Gulf of St Lawrence, Bay of Fundy, Delaware Bay, and Chesapeake Bay; the St Lawrence and Great Lakes form a rough crescent (with Lake Winnipeg, Lake Athabasca, the Great Bear, and the Great Slave lakes) around the exposed rock of the great Canadian Shield, into which Hudson Bay breaks from the north; Greenland is a high, ice-covered plateau with a deeply indented coastline of fjords.

North America has one of the longest rivers in the world (the Mississippi) and also a drainage system with one of the greatest water capacities (the St Lawrence–Great Lakes). The chief continental divide is the western cordillera and because rivers rising on the east slopes have a long way to go to the sea, it follows that the drainage basins of these large rivers (such as the Mackenzie) are enormous. Whilst the rivers flowing east are the largest, the rivers flowing west (the Colorado, Columbia, and the Frazer), cutting through the western cordillera, are the most spectacular. They are also an important source of hydroelectric power.

Lakes also abound, mainly as a result of glaciation. Arctic Canada is covered with the remains of an immense glacial lake (Lake Agassiz) and also the results of ice damming the drainage of water to the open sea, such as the Great Slave and Bear lakes. The ice sheet deepened the basins but the early lakes drained south into the Mississippi–Ohio system, and not until the final retreat of the ice did the lakes seek the lowest outlet east through the St Lawrence

Climate

With a north–south length of over 8,000 km/4,970 mi, North America has a wide range of climates, and resultant soil and vegetation zoning. About one-third of the continent has a dry climate, chiefly in the southwest, where the tropical continental air mass and the rainshadow effect of the western cordillera coincide. The Great Plains area can be classed as semi-arid. The larger rivers act as funnels for storms. The Arctic zone includes the Canadian Shield and Alaska and is dominated by polar air masses; only in June–September do temperatures rise above freezing. The cool temperate zone stretches south of this from Newfoundland to Alaska and is dominated by the polar continental air mass bringing long, severe winters. Spring and autumn frosts are hazardous to crops. The warm temperate zone covers the Mississippi lowlands and the southeastern USA and is dominated by the Gulf tropical air mass. Winters are mild and the frost-free season lasts over 200 days. The southwestern USA experiences a Mediterranean-type climate, with dry summers and mild winters.

Products

With abundant resources and an ever-expanding home market, the USA's fast-growing industrial and technological strength has made it less dependent on exports and a dominant economic power throughout the continent. Canada is the world's leading producer of nickel, zinc, uranium, potash, and linseed, and the world's second-largest producer of asbestos, silver, titanium, gypsum, sulphur, and molybdenum; Mexico is the world's leading producer of silver and the fourth-largest oil producer; the USA is the world's leading producer of salt and the second-largest producer of oil and cotton; nearly 30% of the world's beef and veal is produced in North America.

History
According to archeological evidence, human settlement in North America began 100,000 to 40,000 years ago, when Mongoloid peoples from Asia migrated, over the Bering land bridge and east of the Brooks range in Alaska into the heart of the continent. Settlement by these ancestors of the American Indians then proceeded south and east. These Stone Age people lived by hunting, fishing, and harvesting fruits, nuts, and the seeds of wild plants. By 7000 BC, however, agriculture was known in Mexico and upper Central America, and by 1400 BC, civilization had developed in these areas. Among the pre-Columbian civilizations were those of the Olmecs (1400–400 BC), Maya (1200 BC–AD 1521), and Aztecs (1325–1521). The first-known European settlement in North America was by Vikings in what they called Vinland; a Norse settlement, dating from about 1000, has been found at L'Anse-aux-Meadows, Newfoundland. But permanent settlement came only after Christopher Columbus's voyage to the West Indies in 1492. In 1521 the Spanish, under Hernán Cortés, destroyed the Aztec empire and imposed their rule on Mexico. The Spanish also colonized Central America and parts of what is now the southern USA, but most of the present USA and Canada was claimed and explored by traders, trappers, and colonizers from the Netherlands, France, and England. The American Revolution 1775–83 ended in the emergence of the USA, stretching from the Atlantic west to the Mississippi River; its area was doubled by the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803. Mexico and Central America won their independence from Spain in 1821. The USA reached its present continental extent by acquiring its Southwest in 1848 and 1851 as a result of war with Mexico, and by purchasing Alaska from Russia in 1867. North of the USA, a Canadian confederation, with continuing links to Great Britain, was formed in 1867. Geographically, North America (including the West Indies) now consists of 22 independent nations; several British, Dutch, French, and US island dependencies; and the Danish territory of Greenland.

North America (redirected from North American continent)