Contents
Latin America
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Area 21,069,501 km²
Population 569 million[1]
Pop. density 27 per sq km (70 per sq mile)
Demonym Latin American, American
Countries 20
Dependencies 10
Languages Spanish, Portuguese, French
Time Zones UTC-2 to UTC-8
Largest cities 1. Mexico City
2. São Paulo
3. Buenos Aires
4. Rio de Janeiro
5. Lima
6. Bogotá
7. Santiago
8. Belo Horizonte
9. Caracas
10. Guadalajara
Latin America (Spanish: América Latina or Latinoamérica; Portuguese: América Latina; French: Amérique latine) is a region of the Americas where Romance languages (i.e., those derived from Latin) – particularly Spanish, Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken.[2][3] Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,501 km² (7,880,000 sq mi), almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area. As of 2008, its population was estimated at more than 569 million.
Etymology and definitions
The idea that a part of the Americas has a cultural affinity with the Romance cultures as a whole can be traced back to the 1830s, in particular in the writing of the French Saint-Simonian Michel Chevalier, who postulated that this part of the Americas were inhabited by people of a "Latin race," and that it could, therefore, ally itself with "Latin Europe" in a struggle with "Teutonic Europe," "Anglo-Saxon America" and "Slavic Europe."[4] The idea was later taken up by Latin American intellectuals and political leaders of the mid- and late-nineteenth century, who no longer looked to Spain or Portugal as cultural models, but rather to France.[5] The actual term "Latin America" was coined in France under Napoleon III and played a role in his campaign to imply cultural kinship with France, transform France into a cultural and political leader of the area and install Maximilian as emperor of Mexico.[6] In contemporary usage:
- In one sense, Latin America refers to those territories in the Americas where the Spanish or Portuguese languages prevail: Mexico, most of Central and South America, and (in the Caribbean) Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico — in summary, Spanish America and Brazil. Latin America is, therefore, defined as all those parts of the Americas that were once part of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires.[7]
- Also, particularly in the United States, the term more broadly refers to all of the Americas south of the United States; thus, English-speaking countries such as Belize, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Lucia, Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and the Bahamas, as well as Haiti and Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana, the Netherlands Antilles, Aruba and Suriname are included. (In the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, Papiamento – a predominantly Iberian–derived creole language – is spoken by the majority of the population.) This definition emphasizes a similar socioeconomic history of the region, which was characterized by formal or informal colonialism, rather than cultural aspects. (See, for example, dependency theory.)[8] As such, some sources avoid this oversimplification by using the phrase "Latin America and the Caribbean" instead, as in the United Nations geoscheme for the Americas.[9][10][11]
- In a more literal definition, which remains faithful to the original usage, Latin America designates all of those countries and territories in the Americas where a Romance language (i.e., languages derived from Latin, and hence the name of the region) is spoken: Spanish, Portuguese, and French, and the creole languages based upon these. Although French-influenced areas of the Americas would include Quebec, this region is rarely considered to be part of Latin America, since its history, distinctively North American culture and economy, and British-inspired political institutions are generally deemed too closely intertwined with the rest of Canada.[12]
The distinction between Latin America and Anglo-America (or, in some uses, North America), which can be criticized for stressing only the European heritage of these regions (that is, for Eurocentrism), is a convention based on the predominant languages in the Americas by which Romance-language and English-speaking cultures are distinguished. Neither area is culturally or linguistically homogenous; in substantial portions of Latin America (e.g., highland Ecuador, Bolivia, Guatemala, and Paraguay), American Indian cultures and, to a lesser extent, Amerindian languages, are predominant, and in other areas, the influence of African cultures is strong (e.g., the Caribbean basin—including parts of Colombia and Venezuela)—and the coastal areas of Ecuador and Brazil.
Subdivisions
Latin America can be subdivided into several subregions based on geography, politics, demographics and culture; some subregions are North America, Central America, the Caribbean, the Southern Cone, and Andean states. In terms of culture, society and national identity Mario Sambarino classified Latin American states into Mestizo-American Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico etc.), Indigenous-America (Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru) and European-American (Argentina and Uruguay).[14]
In Darcy Ribeiro's classification system Latin American countries are classified as "New Peoples" (Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil etc.), that merged from the mix of several cultures while Peru, Bolivia and Mexico are "Testimony Peoples", remnants of ancient civilizations and Argentina and Uruguay, former "New Peoples" that became "Transplantated Peoples", essentially European, after massive immigration.[14] Under this scheme, the people of the Brazilian Amazon could be regarded as being just as much "Testimony Peoples" as those of the Peruvian Amazon, and the people of the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul could equally be seen as "Translplanted", just like those of the very similar cultures of neighboring Uruguay and Argentina.
History
Pre-columbian history
The Americas were thought to have been first inhabited by people crossing the Bering Land Bridge, now known as the Bering strait, from northeast Asia into Alaska well over 10,000 years ago. The earliest known settlement, however, was identified at Monte Verde, near Puerto Montt in Southern Chile. Its occupation dates to some 14,000 years ago and there is some disputed evidence of even earlier occupation. Over the course of millennia, people spread to all parts of the continents. By the first millennium AD/CE, South America’s vast rainforests, mountains, plains and coasts were the home of tens of millions of people. The earliest settlements in the Americas are of the Las Vegas Culture[citation needed] from about 8000 BC and 4600 BC, a sedentary group from the coast of Ecuador, the forefathers of the more known Valdivia culture, of the same era. Some groups formed more permanent settlements such as the Chibchas (or "Muiscas" or "Muyscas") and the Tairona groups. These groups are in the circum carribean region. The Chibchas of Colombia, the Quechuas and Aymaras of Bolivia and Perú were the three Indian groups that settled most permanently.
The region was home to many indigenous peoples and advanced civilizations, including the Aztecs, Toltecs, Caribs, Tupi, Maya, and Inca. The golden age of the Maya began about 250, with the last two great civilizations, the Aztecs and Incas, emerging into prominence later on in the early fourteenth century and mid-fifteenth centuries, respectively. The Aztec empire was ultimately the most powerful civilization known throughout the Americas, until it's downfall caused by the Spanish invasion.