Useful information on the American continent with geographical division of the territory from north to south, climatic characteristics, flora and fauna of the various areas.
America in short
America is made up of two distinct continental masses, North America and South America, connected to each other through a long and narrow strip of land, referred to as Central America, inclusive of the Antilles islands.
- Number of component states: 40
- Area in sq km: 24,216,757
- Population: 412,911,333 (first half 2001)
North America
North America or North America is located entirely in the northern hemisphere between the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Caribbean Sea in the south. North America is the third continent in size, located almost entirely in the western hemisphere.
It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, to the south-east by the Caribbean Sea and to the south-west by the northern Pacific Ocean.
North America offers breathtaking panoramas, many cities to see, many types of climates depending on the areas with a wide variety of cultures both current and belonging to the past with some of the most famous monuments in the world.
North America includes Canada, the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean islands. The largest surface is occupied by Canada and the USA with an average altitude of about seven hundred meters.
North America or North America is located in the northern hemisphere, bordered to the north by the Arctic glacial sea, to the east by the Atlantic ocean, to the southeast by the Caribbean sea, to the south and west by the Pacific ocean. South America is located in the southeast.
North America and South America are collectively identified as the Americas.
North America joins South America at the Colombia-Panama border on the Panama Canal. The continental coast is very long and very irregular.
The Gulf of Mexico represents the largest gulf on the continent, followed by Hudson Bay, the Gulf of San Lorenzo and the Gulf of California.
Many islands are located off the coast including the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the Greater and Lesser Antilles, the Alexander Archipelago and the Aleutian Islands.
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Greenland, which belongs to Denmark, is the largest island in the world that geographically falls within North America.
The vast North American area can be divided into large regions including the Great Plains, which range from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Arctic, the western mountains, which are geologically young, which includes the famous Rocky Mountains, the Great Basin , California and Alaska, the Canadian Shield plateau, the northeastern region, which includes the Appalachian Mountains, the coastal plain along the Atlantic coast and the Florida peninsula.
Mexico, characterized by long cordillera and plateaus, is considered to fall largely in the western region. The western mountains are split in two by the Rocky Mountains and coastal chains of California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. The highest peak is that of Mount McKinley in Alaska.
Climate North America
The climate of North America is influenced, in addition to the latitude, by the arrangement of the reliefs, by the distance from the coasts and by the atmospheric circulation that determines frequent changes of weather and violent cyclones.
The barriers represented by the reliefs arranged parallel to the coasts prevent marine mitigating influences from reaching the inland regions, subject for this reason to a distinctly continental climate, with significant seasonal temperature variations reaching even 55 ° centigrade.
The coastal regions located in the middle latitudes enjoy a mild climate, while those of the Gulf of Mexico are subject to a tropical climate; the extreme northern regions (northern Canada, Greenland) are characterized by polar climate.
In the islands of Central America the climate is tropical, while in the Isthmian region there is a clear division into three bands determined by the altitude: tierras calientes (warm lands) up to 600 m., Tierras templadas (temperate lands) from 600a 1800 m., Tierras frias (cold lands) over 1800 m.
Hydrography North America
Relevant is the diversity of rivers that flow into the Pacific ocean and those that flow into the Atlantic ocean. The former are in fact characterized by a short and steep course due to the proximity of the North American cordillera, the latter by a much longer and regular course with a regular, not steep slope.
Flora North America
The flora of North America has been significantly modified by man.The belt affected by the polar circle and southern Greenland are characterized by tundra (mosses, lichens, herbaceous and dwarf suffrutics).
To the south of this (Canada) there are conifers (pines and firs) often mixed with broad-leaved trees (birches, poplars, American beeches), especially along the Pacific side.
In the central regions, less rainy, grasses spread over grasses and steppes with bushy and thorny plants. The desert areas (around the Salt Lake) have poorer vegetation, due to xerophilous and succulent (southern Mexico) and, in Arizona, to Cactaceae.
The Atlantic Ocean side has coniferous (also redwood) and broad-leaved forests, which stop along the Intermontane plateaus and canyons, the vegetation is completely or almost completely missing.
Further south, around the Gulf of Mexico, a tropical and subtropical vegetation is affirming that is connected, towards the north, to that of North America, which gradually passes (Valleys of the Rio San Juan and I. of Managua and Nicaragua) to the vegetation typical of South America.
Fauna North America
In North America there are bison, deer, elk, bears and the most characteristic of the area are the ox and the muskrat. In Central America, the platirrine monkeys, vampires, anteater, puma, jaguar and tapir are worth mentioning
central America
Central or Central America comprises 21 independent states, 13 of which were island islands located in the Caribbean Sea. Central America is a narrow isthmus of land that connects North America to South America. The north of the Pacific Ocean is located in the south-west, the Caribbean Sea is in the north-east and the Gulf of Mexico is in the north. Most of Central America remains above the Caribbean area.
The region is geologically active, with volcanic eruptions and frequent earthquakes. The land made fertile by volcanic lava and bad weather has allowed the cultivation of large areas of the plateau to support entire cities with agricultural products.
Central America offers a splendid coast, with crystal clear sea and temperate waters, tropical forests and a rich experience through the varied cultural heritage, made up of many archaeological sites testifying to the interesting civilizations of the past.
South America
The definition of South America or South America has its origins as far back as 1507 when to the cartographers of the time it was suggested by the Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci that the newly discovered continent was a New World and not the East Indies as had initially been believed.
South America is a continent located in the western hemisphere, especially in the southern hemisphere, and borders the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the north-east.
For South America there are many travel options, tourist destinations characterized by breathtaking coasts, very lively cities, sometimes even with colonial history, mountain areas with trekking routes in addition to the vast rainforest characterized by Amazonian biodiversity.
Climate South America
The climate of South America is largely influenced by the tropical belt in which about 2/3 of this part of America is included. The southernmost area is part of the southern temperate zone.
The tropical belt is characterized by the climate is hot and humid, very rainy, along the Caribbean coast and in the Amazon, while in the Orinoco basin and in the internal regions of the Brazilian plateau, rainfall is scarcer.
The Andean region influenced by altitude, also allows it to be inhabited in the equatorial regions. In the southern regions, the temperature decreases rapidly as one proceeds south, so much so that in Tierra del Fuego the climate already has typically polar characteristics.
Hydrography South America
Even in South America the rivers are characterized by a short and impetuous course in the part towards the Pacific Ocean, while those that descend towards the Atlantic Ocean are much richer in water and thousands of kilometers long.
Flora South America
In the tropical area corresponding to the Amazonian lowlands (and part of the Guayana) we have the "selvas" (virgin equatorial forests rich in waterways where aquatic plants of the genera Pontederia and Eichhornia abound), along the Atlantic coast, between the mouths Orinoco and the Rio de Janeiro territory to the west along the eastern slopes of the Andes, from Colombia to Brazil.
In the Brazilian plateau, typically less prone to rains, there are campos cerrados and catingas, in the Orinoco basin, grass and cyberaceous savannah, in the pampas area (Argentina, southern Uruguay and most of the Chado), steppes and highs prevail grasses, in the arid and rich steppe stones in Patagonia, there are araucarias, in the southern area, towards the Strait of Magellan, American beech forests, in the extreme southern area, there are desert areas populated by mosses, lichens and herbaceous plants hygrophilous.
Other desert areas are located further north along the coasts of Chile and southern Peru.
South America fauna
Platyrine monkeys, vampires, armadillos, anteaters, carnivorous species such as cougars and jaguars, camelids, llamas, alpacas and vicuña live in South America in particular. Then there are reptiles such as the poisonous lizard (eloderma) and birds such as toucans, hummingbirds and flys. The waters of the rivers are full of caimans and piranhas.
