Northern America is the northernmost subregion of North America as well as the northernmost region in the Americas. The boundaries may be drawn significantly differently depending on the source of the definition. In one definition, it lies directly north of Middle America.[2] Northern America's land frontier with the rest of North America then coincides with the Mexico–United States border. Geopolitically, according to the United Nations' scheme of geographical regions and subregions, Northern America consists of Bermuda, Canada, Greenland, Saint Pierre and Miquelon and the United States (the contiguous United States and Alaska only, excluding Hawaii, Navassa Island, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, and other minor U.S. Pacific territories).[3][4]
.svg) | |
| Area | 21,780,142 km2 (8,409,360 sq mi) |
|---|---|
| Population | 375,278,947 (2021 est.) |
| Population density | 16.5/km2 (42.7/sq mi) |
| GDP (nominal) | $27.5 trillion (2022)[1] |
| Countries | |
| Dependencies | |
| Languages | English, French, Spanish, Danish, Greenlandic, and various recognized regional languages |
| Time zones | UTC−10:00 (west Aleutians) to UTC+00:00 (Danmarkshavn, Greenland) |
| Largest cities | |
| UN M49 code | 021 – Northern America003 – North America019 – Americas001 – World |
Definitions
editMaps using the term Northern America date back to 1755, when the region was occupied by France, Great Britain, and Spain.[5] The Solemn Act of the Declaration of Independence of Northern America in 1813 applied to Mexico. Today, Northern America includes the Canada–US dyad, developed countries that exhibit very high Human Development Indexes and intense economic integration while sharing many socioeconomic characteristics.[6]
The World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions has "Northern America" as the seventh of its nine "botanical continents". Its definition differs from the usual political one: Mexico is included, Bermuda is excluded (being placed in the Caribbean region), Hawaii is excluded (being placed in the Pacific botanical continent) and all of the Aleutian Islands, Russian as well as American, are included.[7]
Countries and territories
edit| Country / Territory | Population[8][9] | Area (km2)[10] |
Density (people per km2) |
Capital |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Bermuda
|
64,185 | 53.2 | 1,206.48 | Hamilton |
 Canada
|
38,155,012 | 9,984,670 | 3.82 | Ottawa |
 Greenland
|
56,243 | 2,166,086 | 0.03 | Nuuk |
 Saint Pierre and Miquelon
|
5,883 | 242 | 24.31 | Saint Pierre |
 United States[11]
|
336,997,624 | 9,826,675 | 34.29 | Washington, D.C. |
* indicates "Demographics of country or territory" links.
Demographics
edit| Year | Population[12] | % change |
Canada | % | United States | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 172,603,000 | — | 13,733,000 | 8.0% | 158,804,000 | 92.0% |
| 1960 | 204,649,000 | +18.6% | 17,847,000 | 8.7% | 186,721,000 | 91.2% |
| 1970 | 230,992,000 | +12.9% | 21,374,000 | 9.3% | 209,513,000 | 90.7% |
| 1980 | 254,007,000 | +10.0% | 24,417,000 | 9.6% | 229,476,000 | 90.3% |
| 1990 | 279,785,000 | +10.1% | 27,541,000 | 9.8% | 252,120,000 | 90.1% |
| 2000 | 312,427,000 | +11.7% | 30,588,000 | 9.8% | 281,711,000 | 90.2% |
| 2010 | 343,287,000 | +9.9% | 34,148,000 | 9.9% | 309,011,000 | 90.0% |
| 2020 | 368,870,000 | +7.5% | 37,742,000 | 10.2% | 331,003,000 | 89.7% |
See also
edit
References
edit- ^ "April 2022 GDP Report for Canada and United States". Retrieved 8 August 2022.
- ^ Gonzalez, Joseph. 2004. "Northern America: Land of Opportunity" (ch. 6). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Geography. (ISBN 1592571883) New York: Alpha Books; pp. 57–8
- ^ Definition of major areas and regions, from World Migrant Stock: The 2005 Revision Population Database, United Nations Population Division. Accessed on line October 3, 2007.
- ^ Composition of macro geographical (continental) regions, geographical sub-regions, and selected economic and other groupings, UN Statistics Division. Accessed online October 3, 2007. (French)
- ^ Bellin, Jacques-Nicolas (n.d.). "Carte de l'Amerique septentrionale (Map of Northern America, 1755)". Library and Archives Canada. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Item NMC 21057.
- ^ Torrey, Barbara Boyle & Eberstadt, Nicholas. 2005 (Aug./Sep.). "The Northern America Fertility Divide Archived 2007-11-07 at the Wayback Machine." Hoover Institution Policy Review. No. 132.
- ^ Brummitt, R.K. (2001). World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions: Edition 2 (PDF). International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases For Plant Sciences (TDWG). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-01-25. Retrieved 2016-04-06.
- ^ "World Population Prospects 2022". United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
- ^ "World Population Prospects 2022: Demographic indicators by region, subregion and country, annually for 1950-2100" (XSLX) ("Total Population, as of 1 July (thousands)"). United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
- ^ Unless otherwise noted, land area figures are taken from Demographic Yearbook—Table 3: Population by sex, rate of population increase, surface area and density (PDF) (Report). United Nations Statistics Division. 2008. Retrieved 2010-10-14.
- ^ Includes the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is distant from the North American landmass in the Pacific Ocean and therefore more commonly associated with the other territories of Oceania.
- ^ "World Population Prospects". population.un.org. Archived from the original on 2019-08-09. Retrieved 2019-02-24.