[3][4] Maps using the term Northern America date back to 1755, when the region was occupied by France, Great Britain, and Spain.

[5] The Solemn Act of the Declaration of Independence of Northern America in 1813 applied to Mexico.

Today, Northern America includes the Canada–US dyad, developed countries that exhibit very high Human Development Indexes and intense economic integration while sharing many socioeconomic characteristics.

[6] The World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions has "Northern America" as the seventh of its nine "botanical continents".

Its definition differs from the usual political one: Mexico is included, Bermuda is excluded (being placed in the Caribbean region), Hawaii is excluded (being placed in the Pacific botanical continent) and all of the Aleutian Islands, Russian as well as American, are included.