North America

North America is the third-largest continent by area and occupies the northern and western hemispheres. Its conventional boundary with South America follows the border of Panama and the Darién region, while the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans define its other margins.¹ Greenland, geographically part of North America, is the world’s largest island; the continent also includes the islands of the Caribbean, from Cuba and Hispaniola to the Lesser Antilles.

The continent’s landforms include the Rocky Mountains and other western cordilleras, the central Great Plains, the Canadian Shield, the Appalachian Mountains, and the Sierra Madre ranges of Mexico. Major waterways include the Mississippi–Missouri system, the Great Lakes, the Mackenzie River, and the Rio Grande. The Bering Strait separates North America from Asia, while the narrow Isthmus of Panama connects it to South America.

North America contains nearly every major climate zone, from polar ice and tundra to tropical rainforest and arid desert. Latitude, elevation, ocean currents, and mountain barriers produce strong regional contrasts: Arctic Canada and Greenland support tundra ecosystems, the Pacific Northwest has temperate rainforests, and northern Mexico includes the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts.²

The continent’s ecological regions include boreal forest, temperate grassland, prairie, chaparral, mangrove, and tropical forest. The Mississippi flyway and other migration routes connect northern breeding grounds with Central American and Caribbean wintering areas. North America also contains distinctive wildlife such as bison, pronghorn, beavers, monarch butterflies, and the jaguar, whose range extends northward from South America into Mexico and occasionally the United States.

North America has been inhabited for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples whose societies developed diverse languages, economies, political institutions, and knowledge systems. Archaeological evidence documents ancient urban centers and regional civilizations, including the Maya and Mexica in Mesoamerica and complex societies in the Mississippi valley.³

European colonization, the Atlantic slave trade, forced Indigenous displacement, and later migration from every inhabited continent reshaped the population. Spanish, English, and French are widely used colonial languages, alongside hundreds of Indigenous languages and major immigrant languages such as Chinese, Arabic, and Haitian Creole. The continent’s religious and cultural life reflects Indigenous traditions, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and many syncretic practices.

North America is politically divided among Canada, the United States, Mexico, the countries of Central America, and the sovereign states and dependent territories of the Caribbean. The United States, Canada, and Mexico cooperate through the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, while other regional institutions address trade, migration, public health, disaster response, and environmental protection.⁴

The continent’s economy combines advanced manufacturing, finance, energy, agriculture, tourism, and extensive cross-border supply chains. Lesser-known geographical details include the fact that Greenland is politically autonomous within the Kingdom of Denmark, the Great Lakes form one of the world’s largest connected freshwater systems, and the Caribbean is both an island region and a major biogeographic bridge between North and South America. The continent is also highly exposed to hurricanes, drought, wildfire, earthquakes, and sea-level rise.⁵

North America’s borders and counts depend on the geographic convention being used. Some classifications treat Central America and the Caribbean as subregions of North America, while others discuss them separately for cultural or political purposes. Greenland is consistently geographic North America even though it is politically associated with Europe through Denmark.

The continent also preserves unusually strong gradients over short distances. In western Mexico, tropical lowlands, highland forests, and desert environments can occur within a relatively limited span, while the Rocky Mountains create rain shadows that help form the Great Basin deserts. The Isthmus of Panama, completed as a land bridge several million years ago, enabled the Great American Biotic Interchange, allowing species to move between North and South America.⁶

Canadian Shield

An ancient region of exposed Precambrian rock surrounding Hudson Bay and extending across much of Canada.

Central America

The land bridge connecting Mexico with South America, conventionally comprising seven countries.

Caribbean

An island and coastal region centered on the Caribbean Sea, including the Greater Antilles, Lesser Antilles, and nearby mainland areas.

Mesoamerica

A cultural region extending from central Mexico through much of Central America, associated with related pre-Columbian civilizations.