Miscellaneous desk
< February 25	<< Jan \| February \| Mar >>	February 27 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

February 26

North America Population

I am looking at the Population by region area of the World population web page on Wikipedia. I am trying to make sense of two charts. In one chart, it claims that the opulation of North America is 368 million with 333 million in the United States. That leaves 35 million for Canada and Mexico. I don't if it considers anything else to be part of North America, which would reduce the population it claims to be in Canada and Mexico. Then, on the other chart, it states that the population of Mexico is increasing from 103 million to 127 million to 148 million. But, that is not possible unless most of the population of Mexico is credited to the United States in the first chart. What am I reading wrong between these two charts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.82.165.112 (talk) 21:08, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That 35 million appears to be only Canada. They're probably considering Mexico to be part of Central America, even though it's geographically North America. --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:05, 26 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Central America is commonly considered part of North America. Anyway, usage varies. I personally think of the "real" North America as being just the US and Canada. But an encyclopedia page should make clear what meanings it is using. --184.144.97.125 (talk) 03:43, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A majority of reliable sources include Canada, the United States, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean island countries and territories to be part of North America. Plus the French overseas territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence just off Newfoundland. Cullen328 (talk) 04:12, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If you want the highest number you can include Greenland, Bermuda, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa and all the other US territories, every Caribbean and north of Caribbean island, Mexico through Panama, everything else in the West Indies cricket team or the North American soccer confederation (2 or 3 guyanas are), the small part of Colombia that looks like the piece that's left after you pull all bananas off the stalk and even anything on the North American, Panama, Cocos or Caribbean plate (parts of Iceland, Portugal and Siberia are) and if you want the smallest number you can count just Canada, DC and 49 states and exclude Hawaii, Greenland, Saint Pierre and Miquelon as Oceania and Europe respectively. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:07, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is a note attached to the figure for North America: "Excludes Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, which are included here under Latin America." So yeah pretty much what Bugs said. Card Zero (talk) 05:47, 27 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]