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The earliest known use of the name "America" dates to 1505, when German poet Matthias Ringmann used it in a poem about the New World. [2] The word is a Latinized form of the first name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who first proposed that the West Indies discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 were part of a previously unknown landmass, rather than the eastern limit of Asia.
World map of Waldseemüller (Germany, 1507), which first used the name America (in the lower-left section, over South America) [1]. The earliest known use of the name America dates to April 25, 1507, when it was applied to what is now known as South America. [1]
American + Sāmoa: The CIA World Factbook says "The name Samoa is composed of two parts, 'sa', meaning sacred, and 'moa', meaning center, so the name can mean Holy Center; alternately, it can mean 'place of the sacred moa bird' of Polynesian mythology." [113] "American" is ultimately derived from Amerigo Vespucci. [114]
[12] [13] Certain genetic diversity patterns from West to East suggest, particularly in South America, that migration proceeded first down the west coast, and then proceeded eastward. [14] Geneticists have variously estimated that peoples of Asia and the Americas were part of the same population from 42,000 to 21,000 years ago.
The United States of America is called 美国 (Pinyin: měiguó; Jyutping: mei5 gwok3) while the continents of the Americas are called 美洲 (Pinyin: měizhōu; Jyutping: mei5 zau1). There are separate demonyms derived from each word and a United States citizen is referred to as 美国人 ( Pinyin : měiguó rén ; Jyutping : mei5 gwok3 yan4 ).
The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, [3] [4] [5] are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America. [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] When viewed as a single continent, the Americas or America is the 2nd largest continent right after Asia, and is the 3rd largest continent by population.
The meaning of the word American in the English language varies according to the historical, geographical, and political context in which it is used.American is derived from America, a term originally denoting all of the Americas (also called the Western Hemisphere), ultimately derived from the name of the Florentine explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci (1451–1512).
By 10,000 BCE, humans were well-established throughout North America. Originally, Paleo-Indians hunted Ice Age megafauna like mammoths, but as they began to go extinct, people turned instead to bison as a food source, and later foraging for berries and seeds. Paleo-Indians in central Mexico were the first in the Americas to farm, around 8,000 BCE.