The subsequent migration of the Inuit into the neoarctic c. 3500 BCE completed what is generally regarded as the settlement by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

The Spanish voyages of Christopher Columbus from 1492 to 1504 resulted in permanent contact with European (and subsequently, other Old World) powers, which eventually led to the Columbian exchange and inaugurated a period of exploration, conquest, and colonization whose effects and consequences persist to the present.

[10] Diseases introduced from Europe and West Africa devastated the indigenous peoples, and the European powers colonized the Americas.

[14] The name was also used (together with the related term Amerigen) in the Cosmographiae Introductio, apparently written by Matthias Ringmann, in reference to South America.

Many pre-Columbian civilizations established characteristics and hallmarks which included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies.

[22][23][24] Beyond that, the specifics of the Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion.

[24][26] The traditional theory has been that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska around 40,000–17,000 years ago,[27] when sea levels were significantly lowered during the Quaternary glaciation.

[25][28] These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets.

[32] The micro-satellite diversity and distributions specific to South American Indigenous peoples indicates that certain populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region.

[34][36][37][38] Then the people of the Arctic small tool tradition, a broad cultural entity that developed along the Alaska Peninsula, around Bristol Bay, and on the eastern shores of the Bering Strait c. 2500 BCE moved into North America.

[41] Contact between the Norse colonies and Europe was maintained, as James Watson Curran states:From 985 to 1410, Greenland was in touch with the world.

In 1492 the Vatican noted that no news of that country "at the end of the world" had been received for 80 years, and the bishopric of the colony was offered to a certain ecclesiastic if he would go and "restore Christianity" there.

This town was abandoned shortly after in favor of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, founded in 1496, the oldest American city of European foundation.

Between 1811 and 1825, Paraguay, Argentina, Chile, Gran Colombia, the United Provinces of Central America, Mexico, Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia gained independence from Spain and Portugal in armed revolutions.

Peaceful decolonization began with the United States's purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803, Florida from Spain in 1819, of Alaska from Russia in 1867, and the Danish West Indies from Denmark in 1916.

Canada became independent of the United Kingdom, starting with the Balfour Declaration of 1926, Statute of Westminster 1931, and ending with the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982.

The distance between its two polar extremities, Murchison Promontory on the Boothia Peninsula in northern Canada and Cape Froward in Chilean Patagonia, is roughly 14,000 km (8,700 mi).

Ponta do Seixas in northeastern Brazil forms the easternmost extremity of the mainland,[56] while Nordostrundingen, in Greenland, is the most easterly point of the continental shelf.

[58] The Great American Interchange resulted in many species being spread across the Americas, such as the cougar, porcupine, opossums, armadillos, and hummingbirds.

[66] The Brazilian Highlands on the east coast are fairly smooth but show some variations in landform, while farther south the Gran Chaco and Pampas are broad lowlands.

Tropical rainforest climate occurs in the latitudes of the Amazon, American cloud forests, southeastern Florida and Darién Gap.

The transatlantic slave trade brought millions of Africans to the territories of the Americas under the colonial rule of European powers.

[111] In North America, the British Empire was heavily involved in the transatlantic slave trade, with the establishment of colonies such as Virginia, where enslaved Africans were primarily used as labor in tobacco plantations and later in other agricultural and domestic sectors.

After the Haitian Revolution led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines, which started in 1791 and was the only successful slave revolt in history, the world's first black republic was established.

Small enclaves of French-, Dutch- and English-speaking regions also exist in Latin America, notably in French Guiana, Suriname, and Belize and Guyana respectively.

The lingua franca Portuñol, a mixture of Portuguese and Spanish, is spoken in the border regions of Brazil and neighboring Spanish-speaking countries.

[149] American essayist H. L. Mencken said, "The Latin-Americans use Norteamericano in formal writing, but, save in Panama, prefer nicknames in colloquial speech.

[170] In industrial terms, the World Bank lists the top producing countries each year, based on the total value of production.

[171] In the production of oil, the continent had 8 of the 30 largest world producers in 2020: United States (1st), Canada (4th), Brazil (8th), Mexico (14th), Colombia (20th), Venezuela (26th), Ecuador (27th), and Argentina (28th).

[172] In the production of natural gas, the continent had 8 of the 32 largest world producers in 2015: United States (1st), Canada (5th), Argentina (18th), Trinidad and Tobago (20th), Mexico (21st), Venezuela (28th), Bolivia (31st), and Brazil (32nd).