New World (Americas)

New World (Americas)
Name	New World (Americas)
Region	Western Hemisphere
Area km2	42330000
Population estimate	1 billion+
Countries	United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Guyana, Suriname, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Bahamas

Contents

New World (Americas) The Americas, commonly called the New World, comprise two continents—North America and South America—and associated islands including Central America, the Caribbean and subarctic archipelagos. The region features continental shields such as the Canadian Shield and major mountain ranges like the Rocky Mountains and the Andes, and has been home to diverse peoples including the Inca Empire, Aztec Empire, and numerous Iroquois Confederacy nations. The arrival of Europeans such as Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and expeditions like that of Ferdinand Magellan initiated sustained contact with polities including the Spanish Empire, Portuguese Empire, French colonial empire, British Empire and Dutch Empire.

Etymology and Definition

The term "New World" emerged in the Age of Discovery amid writings by Amerigo Vespucci and cartographers like Martin Waldseemüller and was popularized alongside maps produced by Gerardus Mercator and publishers in Nuremberg. Contemporary usage distinguishes the New World from the Old World of Europe, Asia, and Africa as seen in documents from Ptolemy-influenced traditions, the Treaty of Tordesillas, and the reports of navigators including John Cabot, Vasco da Gama, and Hernán Cortés. Legal frameworks such as the Spanish colonization of the Americas and diplomatic accords like the Treaty of Zaragoza further defined zones of imperial influence during the Age of Sail and the era of mercantilism.

Before 1492 the Americas hosted complex societies: the Inca Empire of the Andes Mountains, the Aztec Empire centered at Tenochtitlan, the urban centers of the Maya in the Yucatán Peninsula and Petén Basin, the mound builders of the Mississippian culture at Cahokia, and coastal polities such as the Moche and the Chavín in the Andean region. Indigenous networks connected groups like the Iroquois, Sioux, Cherokee, Navajo, Mapuche, Guarani, Arawak, Taino, and Carib through trade, ritual, and warfare involving sites such as Teotihuacan, Chichén Itzá, Machu Picchu, and the Nazca lines. Archaeologists working with methods from radiocarbon dating to glyph decipherment by scholars influenced by Yale University and institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution have traced migrations across the Bering Land Bridge and cultural developments in the Arctic among groups like the Inuit.

Contact triggered demographic collapse due to pathogens introduced from Europe and carried by colonial circuits involving ports such as Seville, Lisbon, Amsterdam, London, and Bordeaux, accelerating declines among indigenous populations like the Taíno and the Cahokia descendants. The Columbian exchange redistributed crops and animals—maize, potato, manioc, tomato, tobacco, chocolate, llama—and Old World species such as wheat, rice, horse, cattle, pig and diseases like smallpox and measles transformed ecologies from the Amazon Rainforest to the Great Plains. Plantation economies in São Tomé and Príncipe-linked Atlantic circuits and regions under the Treaty of Madrid relied on enslaved Africans from areas affected by actors like the Royal African Company and intermediaries in West Africa including the Kingdom of Kongo and Benin.

Between the late 18th and 19th centuries revolutionary events shaped sovereign states: the American Revolutionary War spawned the United States Declaration of Independence; the Haitian Revolution produced Haiti; the Spanish American wars of independence elevated leaders such as Simón Bolívar, José de San Martín, Miguel Hidalgo, Bernardo O'Higgins, Antonio José de Sucre, and Dom Pedro I; and independence processes in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Colombia, and Venezuela led to constitutions influenced by Enlightenment thinkers and institutions like the Congress of Angostura and the Constitution of Cádiz. Postindependence conflicts included the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War, the War of the Triple Alliance, and nation-building efforts involving administrations shaped by figures such as Porfirio Díaz, Getúlio Vargas, Juan Perón, and Fidel Castro.

The Americas produced syncretic cultures blending indigenous, European, and African traditions seen in literature by Gabriel García Márquez, Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz, Simone de Beauvoir-adjacent intellectual exchanges, music traditions like samba, reggae, jazz, blues, mariachi, and visual arts from Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to Wifredo Lam. Urban centers including New York City, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Lima, Havana, and Santiago, Chile became nodes in global networks with institutions such as Harvard University, University of São Paulo, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Museum of Modern Art, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal-linked collections, and festivals like Carnival in Brazil and Day of the Dead. Contemporary geopolitics involves organizations such as the Organization of American States, trade agreements like NAFTA and MERCOSUR, and ongoing movements for indigenous rights led by groups referencing treaties like the Jay Treaty and legal bodies including the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Category:Continents