The Americas (also collectively called America)[3][4][5] encompass the totality of the continents

of North and South America.[6][7][8] Together, they make up most of the land in Earth's western
hemisphere[9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] and comprise the New World.

Along with their associated islands, they cover 8% of Earth's total surface area and 28.4% of its
land area. The topography is dominated by the American Cordillera, a long chain of mountains
that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by
large river basins, such as the Amazon, St. Lawrence River / Great Lakes basin, Mississippi, and La
Plata. Since the Americas extend 14,000 km (8,700 mi) from north to south, the climate and
ecology vary widely, from the arctic tundra of Northern Canada, Greenland, and Alaska, to the
tropical rain forests in Central America and South America.

Humans first settled the Americas from Asia between 42,000 and 17,000 years ago. A second
migration of Na-Dene speakers followed later from Asia. The subsequent migration of the Inuit
into the neoarctic around 3500 BCE completed what is generally regarded as the settlement by
the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

The first known European settlement in the Americas was by the Norse explorer Leif Ericson.[17]
However, the colonization never became permanent and was later abandoned. The voyages of
Christopher Columbus from 1492 to 1502 resulted in permanent contact with European (and
subsequently, other Old World) powers, which led to the Columbian exchange. Diseases
introduced from Europe and West Africa devastated the indigenous peoples, and the European
powers colonized the Americas.[18] Mass emigration from Europe, including large numbers of
indentured servants, and importation of African slaves largely replaced the indigenous peoples.

Decolonization of the Americas began with the American Revolution in 1776 and Haitian
Revolution in 1791. Currently, almost all of the population of the Americas resides in
independent countries; however, the legacy of the colonization and settlement by Europeans is
that the Americas share many common cultural traits, most notably Christianity and the use of
Indo-European languages; primarily Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, and to a lesser extent,
Dutch.

The population is over 1 billion, with over 65% of them living in one of the three most populous
countries (the United States, Brazil, and Mexico). As of the beginning of the 2010s, the most
populous urban agglomerations are Mexico City (Mexico), New York (U.S.), Sao Paulo (Brazil), Los
Angeles (U.S.), Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), all of them megacities
(metropolitan areas with ten million inhabitants or more).