Portal:North America
The North America Portal
North America is a continent in the Northern and Western Hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean. The region includes the Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, the Caribbean, Central America, Clipperton Island, Greenland, Mexico, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Turks and Caicos Islands, and the United States.
North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers (9,540,000 square miles), representing approximately 16.5% of the Earth's land area and 4.8% of its total surface area. It is the third-largest continent by size after Asia and Africa, and the fourth-largest continent by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. As of 2021[update], North America's population was estimated as over 592 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's population. In human geography, the terms "North America" and "North American" can refer to Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Greenland or, alternatively, Canada, Greenland and the US (Mexico being classified as part of Latin America) or simply Canada and the US (Greenland being classified as either Arctic or European (due to its political status as a part of Denmark) and Mexico classified as Latin American).
It is unknown with certainty how and when first human populations first reached North America. People were known to live in the Americas at least 20,000 years ago, but various evidence points to possibly earlier dates. The Paleo-Indian period in North America followed the Last Glacial Period, and lasted until about 10,000 years ago when the Archaic period began. The classic stage followed the Archaic period, and lasted from approximately the 6th to 13th centuries. Beginning in 1000 AD, the Norse were the first Europeans to begin exploring and ultimately colonizing areas of North America.
In 1492, the exploratory voyages of Christopher Columbus led to a transatlantic exchange, including migrations of European settlers during the Age of Discovery and the early modern period. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, enslaved Africans, immigrants from Europe, Asia, and descendants of these respective groups. (Full article...)
Featured article -
The Bull Run River is a 21.9-mile (35.2 km) tributary of the Sandy River in the U.S. state of Oregon. Beginning at the lower end of Bull Run Lake in the Cascade Range, it flows generally west through the Bull Run Watershed Management Unit (BRWMU), a restricted area meant to protect the river and its tributaries from contamination. The river, impounded by two artificial storage reservoirs as well as the lake, is the primary source of drinking water for the city of Portland, Oregon.
It is likely that Native Americans living along the Columbia River as early as 10,000 years ago visited the Bull Run watershed in search of food. Within the past few thousand years they created trails over the Cascade Range and around Mount Hood, near the upper part of the Bull Run watershed. By the mid-19th century, pioneers used these trails to cross the mountains from east to west to reach the fertile Willamette Valley. In the 1890s, the City of Portland, searching for sources of clean drinking water, chose the Bull Run River. Dam-building, road construction, and legal action to protect the watershed began shortly thereafter, and Bull Run water began to flow through a large pipe to the city in 1895. (Full article...)
Featured picture -
Featured biography -
Edward Michael Stelmach ECA AOE (/ˈstɛlmæk/; born May 11, 1951) is a Canadian politician who served as the 13th premier of Alberta, from 2006 to 2011. The grandson of Ukrainian immigrants, Stelmach was born and raised on a farm near Lamont and fluently speaks the distinctive Canadian dialect of Ukrainian. He spent his entire pre-political adult life as a farmer, except for some time spent studying at the University of Alberta. His first foray into politics was a 1986 municipal election, when he was elected to Lamont County council. A year into his term, he was appointed reeve. He continued in this position until his entry into provincial politics.
In the 1993 provincial election, Stelmach was elected as the Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Vegreville-Viking (later Fort Saskatchewan-Vegreville). A Progressive Conservative, he served in the cabinets of Ralph Klein—at various times holding the portfolios of Intergovernmental Relations, Transportation, Infrastructure, and Agriculture, Food, and Rural Development—where he developed a reputation as a low-key politician who avoided the limelight. When Klein resigned the party's leadership in 2006, Stelmach was among the first to present his candidature to replace him. After a third-place finish on the first ballot of the leadership race, he won an upset second ballot victory over former provincial treasurer Jim Dinning. (Full article...)
Good article -
Mount Elbert is the highest summit of the Rocky Mountains of North America. With an elevation of 14,438 feet (4400.58 m), it is also the highest point in the U.S. state of Colorado and the second-highest summit in the contiguous United States after Mount Whitney, which is slightly taller. The ultra-prominent fourteener is the highest peak in the Sawatch Range, as well as the highest point in the entire Mississippi River drainage basin. Mount Elbert is located in San Isabel National Forest, 12.1 miles (19.4 km) southwest (bearing 223°) of the city of Leadville in Lake County, Colorado.
The mountain was named in honor of a Colorado statesman, Samuel Hitt Elbert, who was active in the formative period of the state and Governor of the Territory of Colorado from 1873 to 1874. Henry W. Stuckle of the Hayden Survey was the first to record an ascent of the peak, in 1874. The easiest and most popular climbing routes are categorized as Class 1 to 2 or A+ in mountaineering parlance. Mount Elbert is therefore often referred to as the "gentle giant" that tops all others in the Rocky Mountains. (Full article...)
Did you know...
- ...that the proposed Atlantica trade bloc would economically tie New England in the U.S. to the Atlantic Provinces of Canada?
- ...that Calico Jack (pictured), an English pirate captain during the early 18th century, was executed with most of his crew in Jamaica on 17 November 1720?
- ...that the Soufrière Hills volcano is an active complex stratovolcano with many lava domes forming its summit on the Caribbean island of Montserrat?
- ... that the oldest winery in The Americas is in Parras de la Fuente?
- ... that the book The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives explores U.S. military expenditures on items including Southern catfish restaurants and Dunkin' Donuts?
Selected panorama
Topics
| Sovereign states |
|  | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dependencies |
| ||||||||||||
Categories
List articles
Related portals
.svg){kind=small}
Northern America
Central America
Caribbean
WikiProjects
North America-
Canada -
Greenland -
Mexico -
Saint Pierre and Miquelon -
United States 
Central America-
Belize -
Costa Rica -
El Salvador -
Guatemala -
Honduras -
Nicaragua -
Panama 
Mesoamerica
Caribbean-
Antigua and Barbuda -
Bahamas -
Barbados -
Bermuda -
Cuba -
Dominica -
Dominican Republic -
Grenada -
Haiti -
Jamaica -
Puerto Rico -
Saint Kitts and Nevis -
Saint Lucia -
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines -
Trinidad and Tobago
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wikivoyage
Free travel guide -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
