Yes I do know it is a state of the United States. I am asking whether Hawaii is considered part of the Americas, or America in the broad sense of the word. Is Hawaii “American” in the same way as say Cuba is North American or the Falkland Islands are South American? Japan is considered part of Asia, Great Britain and Ireland part of Europe; Madagascar part of Africa, but what about a group of islands so far from a continent as Hawaii?
If Hawaii is not “American” not, shouldn’t the country have been renamed “The United States of America and Polynesia” in 1959?
I think the Hawaiian islands are simply an independent archipelago (not one of the -nesias) in the Pacific. It is certainly not part of North America or Asia.
As to the name: are you looking for logic in the human assignment of place names? (Besides, since we didn’t change the country’s name, there is be no precedent forcing us to change it again when we annex Antarctica, Chile, Botswana, and Denmark.)
DDG, although discussions of geography are only slightly behind discussions of race for length and rancor, it should be noted that both the Greater and Lesser Antilles do get “associated” with North America by such publications as the Encyclopædia Britannica and National Geographic.
It depends on the context. Politically, Hawaii is part of North America (and Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Grand Cayman, etc, are part of Europe).
Geographically, of course, Hawaii is part of Polynesia, or sometimes is listed as part of “Oceania.”
But sometimes even scientific organizations will use the political context for convenience. For example, the American Ornithologists’ Union includes Hawaii in their list of “American” birds, even though biogeographically it is part of a different region.