Latin America
Latin America is a collective region of the Americas where Romance languages—languages derived from Latin—are predominantly spoken. The term was coined in France in the mid-19th century to refer to regions in the Americas that were ruled by the Spanish, Portuguese, and French empires.
| Area | 20,111,457 km2 (7,765,077 sq mi) |
|---|---|
| Population | 656,098,097 (2021 est.) |
| Population density | 31/km2 (80/sq mi) |
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| Religions |
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| Demonym | Latin American |
| Countries | 20 |
| Dependencies | 14 |
| Languages | Romance languages Others: Quechua, Mayan languages, Haitian Creole, Antillean Creole, Guaraní, Aymara, Nahuatl, English, German, Italian, Dutch, Mapudungun, Yiddish, Welsh, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Greek, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, other languages |
| Time zones | UTC−02:00 to UTC−08:00 |
| Largest cities | Largest urban areas: 1. São Paulo 2. Mexico City 3. Buenos Aires 4. Rio de Janeiro 5. Bogotá 6. Lima 7. Santiago 8. Guadalajara 9. Monterrey 10. Belo Horizonte |
| UN M49 code | 419 – Latin America and the Caribbean019 – Americas001 – World |
The term does not have a precise definition, but it is "commonly used to describe South America, Central America, Mexico, and the islands of the Caribbean". In a narrow sense, it refers to Spanish America and Brazil (Portuguese America). The term "Latin America" is broader than Hispanic America, which specifically refers to Spanish-speaking countries; and narrower than categories such as Ibero-America, a term that refers to both Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries from the Americas, and sometimes from Europe.
The term Latin America was first used in Paris at a conference in 1856 called "Initiative of America: Idea for a Federal Congress of the Republics" (Iniciativa de la América. Idea de un Congreso Federal de las Repúblicas), by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao. The term was further popularized by French emperor Napoleon III's government of political strongman that in the 1860s as Amérique latine to justify France's military involvement in the Second Mexican Empire and to include French-speaking territories in the Americas, such as French Canada, Haiti, French Louisiana, French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe and the French Antillean Creole Caribbean islands Saint Lucia, and Dominica, in the larger group of countries where Spanish and Portuguese languages prevailed.
The region covers an area that stretches from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego and includes much of the Caribbean. It has an area of approximately 19,197,000 km2 (7,412,000 sq mi), almost 13% of the Earth's land surface area. As of March 2, 2020, the population of Latin America and the Caribbean was estimated at more than 652 million, and in 2019, Latin America had a combined nominal GDP of US$5,188,250 trillion and a GDP PPP of US$10,284,588 trillion. More than 40 of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world are located in Latin America.