Western Hemisphere in the context of "Caribbean Sea"

The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America. When viewed as a single continent, the Americas are the 2nd largest continent by area after Asia and the 3rd largest continent by population. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and constitute the New World.

Along with their associated islands, the Americas cover 8% of Earth's total surface area and 28.4% of its land area. The topography is dominated by the American Cordillera, a long chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by large river basins, such as the Amazon, St. Lawrence River–Great Lakes, Mississippi, and La Plata basins. Since the Americas extend 14,000 km (8,700 mi) from north to south, the climate and ecology vary widely, from the arctic tundra of Northern Canada, Greenland, and Alaska, to the tropical rainforests in Central America and South America.

The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east.

At 165,250,000 square kilometers (63,800,000 square miles) in area (as defined with a southern Antarctic border), the Pacific Ocean is the largest division of the World Ocean and the hydrosphere and covers approximately 46% of Earth's water surface and about 32% of the planet's total surface area, larger than its entire land area (148,000,000 km (57,000,000 sq mi)). The centers of both the water hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere, as well as the oceanic pole of inaccessibility, are in the Pacific Ocean. Ocean circulation (caused by the Coriolis effect) subdivides it into two largely independent volumes of water that meet at the equator, the North Pacific Ocean and the South Pacific Ocean (or more loosely the South Seas). The Pacific Ocean can also be informally divided by the International Date Line into the East Pacific and the West Pacific, which allows it to be further divided into four quadrants, namely the Northeast Pacific off the coasts of North America, the Southeast Pacific off South America, the Northwest Pacific off Far Eastern/Pacific Asia, and the Southwest Pacific around Oceania.

The Eastern Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth which is east of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and west of the antimeridian (which crosses the Pacific Ocean and relatively little land from pole to pole). It is also used to refer to Afro-Eurasia (Africa and Eurasia) and Australia, in contrast with the Western Hemisphere, which includes mainly North and South America. The Eastern Hemisphere may also be called the "Oriental Hemisphere", and may in addition be used in a cultural or geopolitical sense as a synonym for the European term, "Old World."

Oceania (UK: /ˌoʊsiˈɑːniə, ˌoʊʃi-, -ˈeɪn-/ OH-s(h)ee-AH-nee-ə, -⁠AY-, US: /ˌoʊʃiˈæniə, -ˈɑːn-/ OH-shee-A(H)N-ee-ə) is a geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its continental landmass. Spanning the Eastern and Western hemispheres, at the centre of the water hemisphere, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of about 9,000,000 square kilometres (3,500,000 sq mi) and a population of around 46.3 million as of 2024. Oceania is the smallest continent in land area and the second-least populated after Antarctica.

Oceania has a diverse mix of economies from the highly developed and globally competitive financial markets of Australia, French Polynesia, Hawaii, New Caledonia, and New Zealand, which rank high in quality of life and Human Development Index, to the much less developed economies of Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Western New Guinea. The largest and most populous country in Oceania is Australia, and the largest city is Sydney. Puncak Jaya in Indonesia is the highest peak in Oceania at 4,884 m (16,024 ft).

North America is a continent in the Northern and Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean. The region includes Middle America comprising the Caribbean, Central America, and Northern America.

North America covers an area of around 24,709,000 square kilometers (9,540,000 square miles), representing approximately 16.5% of Earth's land area and 4.8% of its total surface area. It is the third-largest continent by size after Asia and Africa, and the fourth-largest continent by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. As of 2021, North America's population was estimated as over 592 million people in 23 independent states and territories, or about 7.5% of the world's population. In human geography, the terms "North America" and "North American" refers to Canada, Greenland, Mexico, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and the United States.

South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern subregion of the Americas.

South America is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean, and to the south by the Drake Passage; North America, the Caribbean Sea lying to the northwest, and the Antarctic Circle, Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula to the south.

The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the peoples who are native to the Americas or the Western Hemisphere. Their ancestors are among the pre-Columbian population of South or North America, including Central America and the Caribbean. Indigenous peoples live throughout the Americas. While often minorities in their countries, Indigenous peoples are the majority in Greenland and close to a majority in Bolivia and Guatemala.

There are at least 1,000 different Indigenous languages of the Americas. Some languages, including Quechua, Arawak, Aymara, Guaraní, Nahuatl, and some Mayan languages, have millions of speakers and are recognized as official by governments in Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, and Greenland.

The "New World" (Latin: Mundus novus) is a term describing the majority of lands in the Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas. It was introduced in the early 16th century, during Europe's Age of Discovery, by Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who published the pamphlet Mundus novus, presenting his conclusion that the lands discovered west of the Atlantic Ocean (soon called America after Amerigo's name) constituted new continents.

This realization expanded the geographical horizon of earlier European geographers, who had thought that the world only included Africa, Asia, and Europe, which became collectively known as the "Old World".

The "Old World" (Latin: Mundus vetus) is a term for Afro-Eurasia coined by Europeans after 1493, when they became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia in the Eastern Hemisphere, previously thought of by the Europeans as comprising the entire world, with the "New World", a term for the newly encountered lands of the Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas.