Latin America: Encyclopedia - Latin America

Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is the parts of the Americas where Romance languages derived from Latin are officially or primarily spoken. Alternatively, Latin America is typically contrasted with Anglo-America where English, a Germanic language, predominates.

Definitions for what comprises Latin America may vary. From a sociopolitical perspective, including only independent countries, Latin America corresponds roughly to all nations south of the United States including most of Central and South America, and the countries of the Caribbean where Spanish, Portuguese, French, or related Creole languages are spoken. Other territories where some languages derived from Latin such as French, Papiamento, or Kreyol predominate (e.g., Quebec in Canada) are frequently not reckoned as parts of Latin America.

Geopolitically, Latin America is divided into 20 independent countries and several dependent territories. Brazil is by far the largest country in Latin America, both in area and in population. It occupies more than 40 percent of the region's land area and has about a third of its people. Its official language, Portuguese, is not officially spoken in other American countries.

Latin America - Etymology

Napoleon III brought the term latin-America over the Spanish, French and Portuguese speaking parts of the Americas, making it an equivalent expression than Latin Europe.

Although several peoples of Latin America are not directly connected to the Latium region of Italy or to the Roman Empire, most of the population speak a Latin-derived language, i.e. Portuguese or Spanish and important parts of Latin American society descent from these peoples.

There was also the need to differentiate between the south of the northern American continent, the United States of America, and the southern continent itself that brought about the term 'Latin America'.

Meanwhile, many people in Latin America do not speak the official Latin-derived languages, but languages indigenous to the region or languages brought by immigration. There is also the blend of Latin dferived cultures with indegenous and African ones resulting in a differentiation in relation to the Latin cultures of Europe.

Québec, Acadia and other French-speaking areas in Canada, Louisiana, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, and other places north of Mexico are traditionally excluded from the Social-political definition of Latin America, despite significant populations speaking a Latin-derived language, because they don't exist as independent states, and/or because they are geographically isolated from the rest of Latin America. French Guiana, however, is usually included, despite being a dependency of France and not an independent country.

The related term Iberoamerica is sometimes used to refer to the nations that were formerly colonies of Spain and Portugal, as these two countries are located on the Iberian peninsula. The Organization of Ibero-American States (OEI) takes this definition a step further, by including Spain and Portugal (often termed the Mother Countries of Latin America) among its member states, in addition to their Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking former colonies in America.

Latin America - Political Divisions

Latin America is often seen as encompassing the following countries:

• Argentina
• Bolivia
• Brazil
• Chile
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Cuba

• Dominican Republic
• Ecuador
• El Salvador
• Guatemala
• Haiti
• Honduras
• Mexico

• Nicaragua
• Panama
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Uruguay
• Venezuela

And the following dependencies:

To France

• French Guyana
• Guadeloupe
• Martinique

To the United States

• Puerto Rico

In addition, some would add Belize, the Falkland Islands, Guyana, and Suriname to this list, even though they are not culturally or linguistically Latin American. They maintain economic ties with nearby countries, and are grouped by the United Nations in predominantly Latin American regions (South and Central America). However, all except Suriname, are also the objects of long-standing territorial claims by their Latin American neighbours.

Latin America - History

This region was home to many indigenous peoples and advanced civilizations, including the notable Aztecs, Inca and Maya, before the arrival of Europeans in the late 15th century. Upon their arrival, most of Latin America was colonized primarily by Spain and Portugal, and in a lesser extent France. In the early 19th century most of the countries in the region attained their independence, although a few small colonies remain. By extension some people, especially in the USA apply the term to the whole region south of United States - including non-latin countries such as Surinam, Jamaica, Guyana, Belize, etc.

Latin America - Demographics

The majority of the people in Latin America have some proportion of European origins. However there is a large percentage of the people in Latin America are of mixed origins, the result of racial intermingling among European settlers, African slaves, and American natives.

This mixture of backgrounds ("Mestizaje" in Spanish) has profoundly influenced religion, music, and politics, and given rise to a vague identity of those belonging to these mixed cultures; this imprecise cultural heritage is (arguably improperly) called Latinos in American English. Outside of the USA, and in many languages (especially romance ones) "Latino" just means "Latin" (which refers to cultures and peoples that can trace their heritage back to the ancient Roman Empire.)

Latin America - Economy

Below is a table showing the Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) prices and the GDP (PPP) of each of the Latin American countries. This can be used as a rough gauge to the relative standards of living in the region. Data are from the year 2005.

Sources: Data from table are from an April 2005 report by the IMF and graphics data are from data by the World Bank from 2003 [1]. Data for Cuba is a 2004 estimate from the CIA World Factbook. GDP (PPP) per capita for Latin America was calculated using population data from List of countries by population

Latin America - Language

The Spanish and Portuguese (in the 10 most populated countries), and French (in smaller countries, in the Caribbean, and in French Guiana) languages predominate.

Many Caribbean nations have their own African-influenced Creole versions of these languages. Native American languages are spoken in many Latin American nations, mainly Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Mexico. Other European languages are also spoken, such as Italian in Brazil and Argentina and German in Southern Brazil.

Latin America - Religion

The primary religion throughout Latin America is Roman Catholicism, but one can also find practitioners belonging to Protestant, Pentecostal, Evangelical, Mormon, Buddhist, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Bahá'í, indigenous, and various Afro-Latin American traditions, such as Santería, and Macumba.

Latin America - Music

One of the main characteristics of Latin American music is its diversity; contrarily to a widespread view (especially in the US), there is not one specific Latin American style of music. The so-called "Latin music" covers generally only the Hispano-Caribbean music (salsa, merengue, bachata, etc.), that is to say the styles of music that have been strongly influenced by African rythms and melodies. It is also possible to find completely different styles of music in Latin America, such as the Argentine tango, Colombian cumbia and vallenato, Mexican ranchera or the various styles of music from Pre-Columbian traditions that are widespread in the Andean region. In Brazil, samba, American jazz, the European classical music and choro have developed the so-called bossanova music. As concerning the musicology field, classical composer Heitor Villalobos worked on the recording of native musical traditions. His classical works have been heavily influenced by them too.

Today in Latin America Latin pop is very popular including many forms of Rock en Espanol.

Latin America - Film

See also

• South America
  • Andean Community
  • Mercosur
  • South American Community of Nations
• Central America
  • Central American Common Market
• Caribbean
  • Caribbean Community
• Latin Europe

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Latin America", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki