Latin America is a collective region of the Americas where Romance languages—languages derived from Latin—are predominantly spoken. The term was coined in France in the mid-19th century to refer to regions in the Americas that were ruled by the Spanish, Portuguese, and French empires.
The term does not have a precise definition, but it is "commonly used to describe South America, Central America, Mexico, and the islands of the Caribbean". In a narrow sense, it refers to Spanish America and Brazil (Portuguese America). The term "Latin America" is broader than Hispanic America, which specifically refers to Spanish-speaking countries, and categories such as Ibero-America, a term that refers to both Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries from the Americas, and sometimes from Europe.
The term Latin America was first used in Paris at a conference in 1856 called "Initiative of America: Idea for a Federal Congress of the Republics" (Iniciativa de la América. Idea de un Congreso Federal de las Repúblicas), by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao. The term was further popularized by French emperor Napoleon III's government of political strongman that in the 1860s as Amérique latine to justify France's military involvement in the Second Mexican Empire and to include French-speaking territories in the Americas, such as French Canada, Haiti, French Louisiana, French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe and the French Antillean Creole Caribbean islands Saint Lucia, and Dominica, in the larger group of countries where Spanish and Portuguese languages prevailed.
The region covers an area that stretches from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego and includes much of the Caribbean. It has an area of approximately 19,197,000 km2 (7,412,000 sq mi), almost 13% of the Earth's land surface area. In 2019, Latin America had a combined nominal GDP of US$5,188,250 trillion and a GDP PPP of US$10,284,588 trillion. (Full article...)
Payún Matrú developed on sediment and volcanic rocks ageing from the Mesoproterozoic to the Tertiary periods. It consists of a large shield volcano capped by a caldera, formed during a major eruption between 168,000 and 82,000 years ago, a high compound volcano (known as Payun or Payun Liso), and two groups of scoria cones and lava flows. The Pleistocene Pampas Onduladas lava flow reaches a length of 167–181 km (104–112 mi) and is the world's longest Quaternary lava flow. (Full article...)
In the race for the presidency, incumbent President Ollanta Humala was ineligible for re-election due to constitutional term limits. Popular Force candidate Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, was the leading candidate in the first round with almost 40 per cent of the vote, but fell short of the 50 per cent majority required to avoid a second round. Peruvians for Change candidate Pedro Pablo Kuczynski narrowly beat Broad Front candidate Verónika Mendoza to finish in second and earn a place in the second round. The run-off was held on 5 June 2016. With support from those opposing Fujimori, Kuczynski won by a narrow margin of less than half a percentage point. He was sworn in as President on 28 July. (Full article...)
... that despite an attempted "extermination" of homosexuals in the 1960s and 1970s, the LGBT community in Argentina is now the most accepted in Latin America?
... that Brazilian computer science researcher and internet pioneer Tadao Takahashi negotiated with drug lords to install internet equipment in his country?
General images
The following are images from various Latin America-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 4In blue countries under right-wing governments and in red countries under left-wing and centre-left governments as of 2023 (from History of Latin America)
Image 10Intermediate level international-style Latin dancing at the 2006 MIT ballroom dance competition. A judge stands in the foreground. (from Culture of Latin America)
Alpamayo, one of the most conspicuous peaks in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range of the PeruvianAndes. It is a steep, almost perfect pyramid of ice, one of a number of peaks that compose the northernmost massif of the Cordillera Blanca..
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