North America is the third largest continent in the world, ranking just below Asia and Africa (which are the first and second-largest continents, respectively).
North America covers an area of 24.71 million square kilometres or 9.54 million square miles. This means that 16.5% of the Earth’s total land area is taken up by North America alone.
Despite being the third-largest continent in the world, North America only ranks fourth when it comes to population. It is outranked by Europe which has a population of 739 million (North American only has 461 million).
The word “America” comes from the name of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. He is the first person to have realized that the West Indies and Brazil are actually not connected to Asia (as what most people have conjectured from the voyages of Columbus), but are part of another separate landmass of their own.
The name “America” used to refer to only South America alone. However, when the landmass of present North America was added to maps, most mapmakers opted to retain the original name.
