Adam
Friedman, USA: Sustainability is much more broad based and more
specific
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere
and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It can also
be considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas. It is
bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the
Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean,
and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea.
North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers
(9,540,000 square miles), about 4.8% of the planet's surface
or about 16.5% of its land area. As of 2013, its population
was estimated at nearly 565 million people across 23 independent
states, representing about 7.5% of the human population. Most
of the continent's land area is dominated by Canada, the United
States, Greenland, and Mexico, while smaller states exist in
the Central American and Caribbean regions. North America is
the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa,
and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe.
The first people to live in North America were Paleoindians
who began to arrive during the last glacial period by crossing
the Bering land bridge. They differentiated into a number of
diverse cultures and communities across the continent. The largest
and most advanced Pre-Columbian civilizations in North America
were the Aztecs in what is now Mexico and the Maya in Central
America. European colonists began to arrive starting in the
16th and 17th centuries, wiping out large numbers of the native
populations and beginning an era of European dominance.
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