Is it true that Mexico is part of South America, as I was told? It makes sense politically and language-wise, but when I look at the map of the world, it just doesn’t seem right. If it is not true, in what country does South America begin past Mexico?
And are the Caribbean Islands part of South America as well?
Thanks.
I have to admit often using “North America” as shorthand for “Canada and the United States”, though geographically Mexico should be included.
As for whether or not islands count, that comes down to a matter of definition.
In my (American) schooling, we were taught that North America was Canada, the United States and Mexico. I assume that leaves the islands in some sort of no-man’s land, although I was very surprised to see that the online Risk game I played for a while considered Greenland a part of North America. If Greenland is part of North America, then it’s not much of s atretch to categorize the Caribbean either way, and culturally they seem to fit with South America more than with North America.
This site says that North America is comprised of “Canada, Greenland, Mexico, the United States, all the countries of Central America and the island countries and dependencies of the Caribbean.”
This one provides a similar list, although it leaves off Greenland, presumably because Greenland is not an independent country, and it is a list of countries.
I think we’ve got some false dichotomies at work here. To me, North America is the U.S., Canada, and possibly Mexico. Central America is possibly Mexico, then everything from Mexico south through Panama (Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama).
Geographically, Mexico is more clearly part of North America, but culturally, it’s got more in common with its Central American neighbors (though with the increasingly Hispanic nature of southern California, that may not be so true any longer!). South America starts with Colombia. There’s no rule that says that every country must be considered part of one of the seven recognized continents.
As far as the islands of the Caribbean are concerned, it’s not necessary to force them to be part of one continent or another, either. They can be just Caribbean islands. In the same vein, what continent are Hawaii or Tahiti part of? Answer: none of the above.
Mexico is a part of North America. I think (and not a lot of people agree with me) that Central America is also part of North America. There’s no continent called “Central America,” and it has to belong somewhere. It’s more culturally aligned with South America, but geographically it makes sense to include it in North America. For that matter, Greenland, too.
I know that people do or did refer to Oceana as a continent, while most of the time we just thing Australia. But it just seems “wrong” to count islands – like the Carribean islands – as part of a continent unless they’re actually on a continental shelf, or at the very least, closely aligned to the continent.
As for Mexico, they refer to Americans as norteamericanos, which would seem to exclude them. But we’re exclusive anyway by referring to ourselves as “American.”
Geomorphologically, North America is a craton, a large continental unit that has been around in one piece for about two billion years. It consists of the core areas of the United States and Canada, with much of northern Mexico. A rift has recently (in geologic times) separated Greenland from mainland North America, and it probably now constitutes a separate microcontinent in geomorphologic terms. Things like the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Straits of Florida, and the East River are meaningless in geomorphologic terms – the islands they set off are part of North America geologically, if not in terms of surface geography.
In terms of geography, the divide between the continents since 1903 has been the Panama/Columbia border, mostly for convenience’ sake, to avoid having one or the other fall across two continents. As may be noted on a map, a tiny piece of Columbia is the southernmost part of the Central American isthmus.
North American, or Norteamericano in Spanish, is the customary usage to describe residents of the U.S. and Canada, as opposed to the Latin Americans who constitute nearly all the rest of the two continents.
But by anyone’s standards, Mexico, Belize, and the five Central American republics are on the continent of North America, along with 49 states of the U.S. and Canada. And the Caribbean islands are for the most part deemed to be an outlying part of it too.
Are you sure about that, Polycarp? Sure the Grand Canyon goes back billions, but the Rockies are less than 2Bn years old. And the Eastern NA landmass seperated from Europe around the time of the end of the dinosaurs. You see, there’s this big honking mid-Atlantic ridge which keeps expanding. And Iceland’s on it.
North America is composed of several continental pieces. The San Andreas fault is just one dividing line.
And I haven’t even started on South America - some of which is in the *Northern[/] Hemisphere.
Bah, d*mn hamsters; Northern. 
If Mexico isn’t in North America, I’m asking that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) get a new name.