The region known as Hispanic America and historically as Spanish America is all the Spanish-speaking countries of the Americas. In all of these countries, Spanish is the main language - sometimes sharing official status with one or more indigenous languages or English, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion.
Afro–Latin Americans or Black Latin Americans are Latin Americans of full or mainly sub-Saharan African ancestry.
The Rio Group (G-Rio) was a permanent association of political consultation of Latin America and Caribbean countries, created in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on December 18, 1986 with the purpose of creating a better political relationship among the countries. It was succeeded in 2011 by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States.
Hinduism is a minority religion in South America, which is followed by even less than 1% of the total continent's population. Hinduism is found in several countries, but is strongest in the Indo-Caribbean populations of Guyana and Suriname. There are about 320,000 Hindus in South America, chiefly the descendants of Indian indentured laborers in the Guianas. There are about 185,000 Hindus in Guyana, 120,000 in Suriname, and some others in French Guiana. In Guyana and Suriname, Hindus form the second largest religion and in some regions and districts, Hindus form the majority. Though in recent times, due to influence of Hindu culture the number of Hindus converts have increased in other countries in South America, including Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and others.
Latin Americans are the citizens of Latin American countries.
The history of the Jews in Latin America began with conversos who joined the Spanish and Portuguese expeditions to the continents. The Alhambra Decree of 1492 led to the mass conversion of Spain's Jews to Catholicism and the expulsion of those who refused to do so. However, the vast majority of conversos never made it to the New World and remained in Spain slowly assimilating to the dominant Catholic culture. This was due to the requirement by Spain's Blood Statutes to provide written documentation of Old Christian lineage to travel to the New World. However, the first Jews came with the first expedition of Christopher Columbus, including Rodrigo de Triana and Luis De Torres.
The Catholic Church is "the Catholic Communion of Churches, both Roman and Eastern, or Oriental, that are in full communion with the Bishop of Rome ." The church is also known by members as the People of God, the Body of Christ, the "Temple of the Holy Spirit", among other names. According to Vatican II's Gaudium et spes, the "church has but one sole purpose–that the kingdom of God may come and the salvation of the human race may be accomplished."
As of the year 2021, Christianity had approximately 2.38 billion adherents and is the largest religion by population respectively. According to a PEW estimation in 2020, Christians made up to 2.38 billion of the worldwide population of about 8 billion people. It represents nearly one-third of the world's population and is the largest religion in the world, with the three largest groups of Christians being the Catholic Church, Protestantism, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. The largest Christian denomination is the Catholic Church, with 1.3 billion baptized members. The second largest Christian branch is either Protestantism, or the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The Islamic Organization of Latin Americaand the Caribbean, headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is considered the most active organization in promoting the affairs of Latin American Muslims and Caribbean Muslims in the region.
As of 2017, South America has an estimated population of 418.76 million people.
Religion in South America has been a major influence on art, culture, philosophy and law and changed greatly in recent years. Roman Catholicism has rapidly declined. Most of this is due to the growth of Protestantism, particularly evangelical Christians. A smaller number of South Americans are also beginning to identify as irreligious. Sizeable adherents of other religions are also present, including of various indigenous religions.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to South America.
The African diaspora in the Americas refers to the people born in the Americas with partial, predominant, or complete sub-Saharan African ancestry. Many are descendants of persons enslaved in Africa and transferred to the Americas by Europeans, then forced to work mostly in European-owned mines and plantations, between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Significant groups have been established in the United States, in Latin America, in Canada, and in the Caribbean (Afro-Caribbean).
Religion in Latin America is characterized by the historical predominance of Catholicism, and growing number and influence of a large number of groups that belong to Protestantism, as well as by the presence of Irreligion. According to survey data from Statista in 2020, 57% of the Latin American population is Catholic and 19% is Protestant.
The Postal Union of the Americas, Spain and Portugal is a regional association of the postal authorities in Latin America, the Caribbean, the United States, Canada, Spain, and Portugal, headquartered in Montevideo. It was founded in 1911 as a restricted union of the Universal Postal Union.
Islam is a minority religion in all of the countries and territories of the Americas, around 1% of North America population are Muslims, and 0.1% of Latin America and Caribbean population are Muslims.
Irreligion in Latin America refers to various types of irreligion, including atheism, agnosticism, deism, secular humanism, secularism and non-religious. According to a Pew Research Center survey from 2014, 8% of the population is not affiliated with a religion. According to Latinobarómetro, the share of irreligious people in Latin America quadrupled between 1996 and 2020, from 4% to 16%.
A 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center estimated that 10-13% of Muslims worldwide adhere to Shia Islam, with a global total of between 154 million and 200 million Shia Muslims. In the Americas, Pew estimated a population of just under 4.6 million Muslims overall in 2009, with a small portion of those being Shia.
The term Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is an English-language acronym referring to the Latin American and the Caribbean region. The term LAC covers an extensive region, extending from The Bahamas and Mexico to Argentina and Chile. The region has over 670,230,000 people as of 2016, and spanned for 21,951,000 square kilometres (8,475,000 sq mi).
