Americas explained to kids

The Americas are two continents, North and South America, located on the western side of the planet Earth. North America includes the countries of Canada, the United States of America, Mexico, and Greenland. South America includes the countries of Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, Venezuela, and Uruguay. The Americas are home to many different peoples and cultures. In North America, the indigenous peoples include the Inuit, the First Nations, and the Métis. In South America, the indigenous peoples include the Quechua, the Aymara, and the Guaraní. The first people to live in the Americas are thought to have come from Asia, across the Bering Strait. The first Europeans to arrive in the Americas were the Spanish, who conquered the Aztec Empire in 1521. The Americas are named after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer who was the first to realize that the lands that Christopher Columbus had discovered were not part of Asia, but were actually a new continent.