Latin America
⚡ ALL INFORMATION CLICK HERE 👈🏻👈🏻👈🏻
Latin America
Browse
Search
Entertainment & Pop Culture
Geography & Travel
Health & Medicine
Lifestyles & Social Issues
Literature
Philosophy & Religion
Politics, Law & Government
Science
Sports & Recreation
Technology
Visual Arts
World History
On This Day in History
Quizzes
Podcasts
Dictionary
Biographies
Summaries
Top Questions
Week In Review
Infographics
Demystified
Lists
#WTFact
Companions
Image Galleries
Spotlight
The Forum
One Good Fact
Entertainment & Pop Culture
Geography & Travel
Health & Medicine
Lifestyles & Social Issues
Literature
Philosophy & Religion
Politics, Law & Government
Science
Sports & Recreation
Technology
Visual Arts
World History
Britannica Classics Check out these retro videos from Encyclopedia Britannica’s archives.
Britannica Explains In these videos, Britannica explains a variety of topics and answers frequently asked questions.
Demystified Videos In Demystified, Britannica has all the answers to your burning questions.
#WTFact Videos In #WTFact Britannica shares some of the most bizarre facts we can find.
This Time in History In these videos, find out what happened this month (or any month!) in history.
Student Portal Britannica is the ultimate student resource for key school subjects like history, government, literature, and more.
COVID-19 Portal While this global health crisis continues to evolve, it can be useful to look to past pandemics to better understand how to respond today.
100 Women Britannica celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, highlighting suffragists and history-making politicians.
Britannica Beyond We’ve created a new place where questions are at the center of learning. Go ahead. Ask. We won’t mind.
Saving Earth Britannica Presents Earth’s To-Do List for the 21st Century. Learn about the major environmental problems facing our planet and what can be done about them!
SpaceNext50 Britannica presents SpaceNext50, From the race to the Moon to space stewardship, we explore a wide range of subjects that feed our curiosity about space!
While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies.
Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.
Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login).
Feedback Type
Select a type (Required)
Factual Correction
Spelling/Grammar Correction
Link Correction
Additional Information
Other
Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
Please select which sections you would like to print:
While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies.
Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.
Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login).
Feedback Type
Select a type (Required)
Factual Correction
Spelling/Grammar Correction
Link Correction
Additional Information
Other
Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
Alternate titles: Hispanic America, Iberoamerica
By
James Lockhart
See All
Edit History
Exploring Latin America: Fact or Fiction?
Did Chile gain its independence in 1818? Did the Incan people rule over ancient Mexico? Sort fact from fiction in this journey through Latin America.
Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content.
Subscribe Now
Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
history of Latin America , history of the region from the pre-Columbian period and including colonization by the Spanish and Portuguese beginning in the 15th century, the 19th-century wars of independence, and developments to the end of the 20th century.
Latin America is generally understood to consist of the entire continent of South America in addition to Mexico , Central America , and the islands of the Caribbean whose inhabitants speak a Romance language . The peoples of this large area shared the experience of conquest and colonization by the Spaniards and Portuguese from the late 15th through the 18th century as well as movements of independence from Spain and Portugal in the early 19th century. Even since independence, many of the various nations have experienced similar trends, and they have some awareness of a common heritage. However, there are also enormous differences between them. Not only do the people live in a large number of independent units, but the geography and climate of their countries vary immensely. The inhabitants’ social and cultural characteristics differ according to the constitution of the occupants before the Iberian conquest, the timing and nature of European occupation, and their varying material endowments and economic roles.
Since the Spanish and Portuguese element looms so large in the history of the region, it is sometimes proposed that Iberoamerica would be a better term than Latin America. Latin seems to suggest an equal importance of the French and Italian contributions, which is far from being the case. Nevertheless, usage has fastened on Latin America, and it is retained here.
This article treats the history of Latin America from the first occupation by Europeans to the late 20th century, with an initial consideration of the indigenous and Iberian background. For more-detailed coverage of the area prior to European contact, see pre-Columbian civilizations . For additional information about the European exploration and colonization of Latin America, see colonialism . For information about the individual countries of Central America and South America as well as the Romance-language-speaking Caribbean countries, see specific country articles by name: for Central America, see Belize , Costa Rica , El Salvador , Guatemala , Honduras , Nicaragua , and Panama ; for South America, see Argentina , Bolivia , Brazil , Chile , Colombia , Ecuador , French Guiana (a départément of France ), Guyana , Paraguay , Peru , Suriname , Uruguay , and Venezuela ; and, for the Caribbean, see Cuba , the Dominican Republic , and Haiti . See also the articles on the dependencies and constituent entities Guadeloupe , Martinique , and Puerto Rico . The physical and human geography of the continents, with some historical overview, are provided in the articles North America and South America . There is also a separate article Latin American literature . For discussion of major cities of Latin America and their histories, see specific articles by name—e.g., Rio de Janeiro , Buenos Aires , and Mexico City .
Though the conditions of pre-Columbian America and 15th-century Iberia are beyond the scope of Latin American history proper, they must be given consideration in that connection. Not only did the geography of precontact America persist, but both the new arrivals and the indigenous inhabitants long retained their respective general characteristics, and it was the fit between them that determined many aspects of Latin American evolution.
From the time of Columbus and the late 15th century forward, the Spaniards and Portuguese called the peoples of the Americas “ Indians ”—that is, inhabitants of India. Not only is the term erroneous by origin, but it did not correspond to anything in the minds of the indigenous people. They had no word meaning “inhabitant of the Western Hemisphere,” and most of them seem not to have adopted any equivalent even after centuries of contact. Any such word refers to commonalities seen from the outside and not to any unity perceived by the inhabitants of the Americas themselves. The indigenous peoples were greatly varied, far more so than the Europeans; they were spread over a vast area and only faintly aware of each other from one major region to the next.
Nonetheless, the indigenous peoples had several things in common. They were closely related to one another in biological terms, and their languages, though they cannot be shown to have a common origin, tend to share many general features. All shared an isolation from the great mass of humanity inhabiting Eurasia and Africa, who were in some way in contact with one another. The inhabitants of America all lacked immunities to diseases common in Europe and Africa . They had some impressive innovations to their credit, including the domesticated plants of Mesoamerica and the Andes , but all had been kept apart from things that had long since spread over much of the rest of the globe, including steel, firearms, horses, wheeled vehicles, long-distance shipping, and alphabetic writing. As a result, the indigenous peoples, once in contact, were very vulnerable to the outsiders. Epidemics raged wherever intruders appeared; with their materials and techniques the Europeans were able to conquer whenever they felt it imperative to do so. There is, then, at times, a need for a common term, and if one realizes its limitations, “Indian” may do as well as another.
Jason Shvili May 6 2021 in Geography
Which Latin American Countries Drink The Most Alcohol?
Top Oil Producing Countries In Latin America And The Caribbean
Proposed States That Do Not Exist In The United States
Where Was Babylon And What Happened To It?
All Continents
North America
Caribbean
Central America
South America
Europe
Africa
Middle East
Asia
Oceania
Arctic
Antarctica
All Countries
US Maps
China Maps
Russia Maps
Philippines Maps
Egypt Maps
Environment
World Facts
Travel
Geography
Did You Know?
History
Science
Quick Facts
Featured
Economics
Politics
Society
Latin America is a vast region in the Western Hemisphere that encompasses Mexico , Central America , the Caribbean , and South America. Thus, it traverses two continents and includes hundreds of millions of people, about 659 million in total. Latin America is often confused with other terms, such as Ibero-America and Hispanic America. The former term refers to countries in which Spanish or Portuguese are the predominant languages, while the latter refers only to countries where Spanish is the predominant language.
Latin America today, however, refers to all the territory stretching from the U.S.-Mexico border all the way to the southern tip of South America. The term “Latin America” was originally created to denote countries in which any Romance, Latin-based languages , including Spanish, Portuguese, and French, are the most prevalent languages. Today, however, the term now denotes the entire aforementioned region, regardless of the language spoken. Sometimes, Latin America is referred to as Latin America and the Caribbean to indicate that it includes the Caribbean.
The term “Latin America” is a legacy of colonialism . At the time when European powers were seizing land in the Americas to establish colonies, they began using the term “Latin America” to differentiate the places in which Romance, Latin-based languages like Spanish, Portuguese, and French were spoken from places where non-Romance languages like English and German were spoken. The term “Latin America” was first put in writing in the 19 th century, during a conference in Paris, France, held by a Chilean politician named Francisco Bilbao.
There is still some disagreement as to the exact origins of the term “Latin America.” A historian named John Leddy Phelan has argued that the term was originally used as a rallying cry for the people of Central and South America in their fight against imperialism . Ironically, however, Napoleon III used the term “Latin America” when he was attempting to make his own imperial conquests, as he wanted to take over Mexico in the 1860s.
In geopolitical terms, Latin America has lost some of its meaning in regards to separating countries where Romance languages are spoken from the rest of the countries in the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, when people refer to Latin America today, they do not exclude countries in the region in which the predominant language is not a Romance-based language. There are several countries and dependencies in what is called Latin America today, in which non-Romance languages are dominant.
These include the Central American country of Belize , the South American countries of Guyana and Suriname , and several countries and dependencies in the Caribbean. Thus, the term “Latin America” today has mostly geopolitical connotations rather than linguistic. Moreover, some say that if the term “Latin America” was meant to apply to all places in which a Romance language dominates, it could easily be argued that the French-speaking Canadian province of Quebec should be considered part of Latin America. But of course, Quebec is not a country unto itself, so it could also be argued that the term “Latin America” need not apply to it because it is in a country where English is the predominant language.
There is a difference between what Latin America means from a geopolitical point of view and what it means from a cultural point of view. Generally speaking, Latin America from a cultural perspective does apply only to countries in which a Romance-based language is the predominant language, specifically Spanish and Portuguese. For example, when people in the US or Canada refer to Latin music, they usually mean music that originates in a country of Latin America in which Spanish or Portuguese is the predominant language.
Certain styles of music and dance are ascribed to certain countries or regions of Latin America. For instance, the style of music known as salsa originated in Cuba , though over time, different styles of salsa developed, including styles that are not indigenous to the geographic region of Latin America. Indeed, there are types of salsa music that originated in the US and West Africa , which are of course not geographically part of Latin America, though the people who came up with these different styles often do come from the region.
One other characteristic of Latin American culture is that some aspects of it are not exactly Latin. In other words, there are elements of Latin American culture that do not come from Spanish or Portuguese colonial sources. Going back to the example of salsa music, in some styles of salsa, there are sounds and rhythms that are African in origin. This is because many people in Latin America are of African descent. Many are the descendants of slaves brought to Latin America from Africa by Spanish and Portuguese colonists and slave traders. Some Latin music includes traditional rhythms from the pre-Columbian Indigenous people of Latin America.
The people of Latin America are often referred to as Latinos or Latinas. The term “Latino/Latina” or the gender-neutral "Latinx" is usually ascribed to a person from one of Latin America’s Spanish- or Portuguese-speaking countries. People from English-, French-, or Dutch-speaking countries and territories in Latin America are usually not called Latinos/Latinas. In many cases, rather, they are referred to as Caribbean, since nearly all the non-Romance language-speaking countries and territories of Latin America are islands in the Caribbean or countries on the Caribbean coast. In the US, the term “Latino/Latina” often overlaps with the term “Hispanic”, which is a term that specifically implies people from countries in which Spanish is the predominant language. Thus, a person from Brazil may or may not be called a Latino/Latina in the US.
The term “Latino/Latina” can also have racial connotations. For example, in the US, a Black person who comes from Latin America will often be considered an African-American rather than a Latino/Latina, even if their first language is Spanish or Portuguese, and/or they are of Latin American descent. A person of Indigenous origin from Latin America may also not be identified by foreigners as a Latino/Latina. The term “Latino/Latina” usually refers to either people of mixed racial heritage from Latin America, or a Caucasian person from Latin America.
All maps, graphics, flags, photos and original descriptions © 2022 worldatlas.com
Innocent Channel Show Porn
Porn Extreme Shemale Fuck Guy Mouth Cumextreme
Download Video Sex Indo Cw Montok