Northern America

Last updated
Northern America
Northern America (orthographic projection).svg
Area21,780,142 km2 (8,409,360 sq mi)
Population375,278,947 (2021 est.)
Population density16.5/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 code021 – Northern America
003North America
019Americas
001World

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]

Contents

Definitions

Maps 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

Country / Territory Population [8] [9] Area
(km2) [10]
Density
(people
per km2)
Capital
Flag of Bermuda.svg Bermuda 64,18553.21,206.48 Hamilton
Flag of Canada (Pantone).svg Canada 38,155,0129,984,6703.82 Ottawa
Flag of Greenland.svg Greenland 56,2432,166,0860.03 Nuuk
Flag of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.svg Saint Pierre and Miquelon 5,88324224.31 Saint Pierre
Flag of the United States.svg United States [11] 336,997,6249,826,67534.29 Washington, D.C.

* indicates "Demographics of country or territory" links.

Demographics

YearPopulation [12] %
change
Canada%United States%
1950172,603,00013,733,0008.0%158,804,00092.0%
1960204,649,000+18.6%17,847,0008.7%186,721,00091.2%
1970230,992,000+12.9%21,374,0009.3%209,513,00090.7%
1980254,007,000+10.0%24,417,0009.6%229,476,00090.3%
1990279,785,000+10.1%27,541,0009.8%252,120,00090.1%
2000312,427,000+11.7%30,588,0009.8%281,711,00090.2%
2010343,287,000+9.9%34,148,0009.9%309,011,00090.0%
2020368,870,000+7.5%37,742,00010.2%331,003,00089.7%

See also

References

  1. "April 2022 GDP Report for Canada and United States" . Retrieved 8 August 2022.
  2. 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
  3. 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.
  4. Composition of macro geographical (continental) regions, geographical sub-regions, and selected economic and other groupings, UN Statistics Division. Accessed online October 3, 2007. (French)
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. "World Population Prospects 2022". United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
  9. "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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. "World Population Prospects". population.un.org. Archived from the original on 2019-08-09. Retrieved 2019-02-24.