A view of Machu Picchu, a pre-Columbian Inca site in Peru.

"The Castle" of ChichÃ©n-ItzÃ¡ in YucatÃ¡n Mexico.

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Latin American

Latin America (Portuguese and Spanish: AmÃ©rica Latina; French: AmÃ©rique latine) is the region of the Americas where Romance languages, those derived from Latin (particularly Spanish and Portuguese), are primarily spoken. more...

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Definition

In most common contemporary usage, Latin America refers only to those territories in the Americas where the Spanish or Portuguese languages prevail: Mexico, most of Central and South America, plus Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean.; Strictly speaking, Latin America can designate all of those countries and territories in the Americas where a Romance language (i.e. languages derived from Latin, and hence the name of the region) is spoken: Spanish, Portuguese, French, and creole languages based upon these. Indeed, this was the original intent when the term was popularized by Napoleon III as part of his campaign to install Maximilian as emperor of Mexico. Using this definition, Latin America includes not only all Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries, but also the current and former French territories in the hemisphere, including Quebec in Canada, Louisiana in the United States, Haiti, Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, French Guiana in South America, and St. Pierre and Miquelon near Newfoundland.; Often, particularly in the United States, the term may be used to refer to all of the Americas south of the U.S., including such countries as Belize, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana Antigua and Barbuda and the Bahamas, where English prevails.; The former Dutch colony Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles, and Aruba are not usually considered part of Latin America, although in the latter two, a predominantly Iberian-derived creole language, Papiamento, is spoken by the majority of the population.; In historical terms, Latin America could be defined as all those parts of the Americas that were once part of the Spanish, Portuguese, and French Empires, which speak languages stemming from Latin. Under this definition, much of the U.S. Southwest, as well as Florida and French Louisiana, would be also included in the region.;

The distinction between Latin America and Anglo-America, and more generally the stress on European heritage (or Eurocentrism), is simply a convention by which Romance-language and English speaking cultures are distinguished, being the predominant languages at this time in history. There are, of course, many places in the Americas (e.g. highland Peru and Guatemala) where American Indian cultures and languages are important, as well as areas in which the influence of African cultures is strong (e.g. the Caribbean, including parts of Colombia and Venezuela, coastal Peru and coastal Brazil).