America was once a cod-fishing realm before it got its name
North America spans about 24.7 million square kilometres, third-largest continent by area. Waldseemüller put America on South America in 1507; the north was Parias, later Baccalearum for cod. Norse settlers reached Greenland and Newfoundland by the late 10th century, centuries before Columbus.
North America lies in the Northern and Western hemispheres, bordered by the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific oceans and separated from South America by the Caribbean. It covers roughly 24,709,000 square kilometres—about 16.5% of Earth's land—and held over 592 million people in 23 states and territories by 2021.
The continent's name followed a winding path. Amerigo Vespucci explored South America between 1497 and 1502. In 1507 Martin Waldseemüller placed America on South America; the northern land was Parias. Petrus Apianus's 1553 map called it Baccalearum, the cod-fish realm. Gerardus Mercator labeled the whole Western Hemisphere America in 1538.
When the first humans arrived remains uncertain, but habitation in the Americas stretches back at least twenty millennia. The Paleo-Indian period followed the Last Glacial Period until about 10,000 years ago. Norse exploration began in the late 10th century with settlements in Greenland and Newfoundland. Columbus's 1492 voyages launched a transatlantic exchange reshaping languages and cultures.
Indigenous societies ranged from small bands to empires like the Mississippian culture with platform-mound cities. Southern groups domesticated tomatoes, squash, and maize. Mayans developed writing and the concept of zero around 400 CE. Leif Erikson reached Newfoundland around 1000 CE, the earliest verified European mainland contact. The United Nations recognizes Northern America, Central America including Mexico, and the Caribbean as three subregions. European colonization left most North Americans speaking English, Spanish, or French today. One of the oldest cultures yet found, the Clovis people of present-day New Mexico, dates to roughly 9550–9050 BCE, and the Inuit probably arrived much later, replacing the Dorset culture in the Arctic. By the time Spaniards came, power in Mesoamerica had passed from the Maya to the Aztecs, whose capital Tenochtitlan fell to Hernán Cortés in 1521.
Source: North America
