365daystravel provides complete information about North America, which is useful during North America vacation packages & North America travel packages. North America is the third largest continent with an estimated population of around 460 million, ca. 24,346,000 kmē (9,400,000 square miles), (if Eurasia is excluded), and the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. [1]. It is bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic Ocean on the east, the Caribbean Sea, Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and South America on the south, and the Arctic Ocean on the north. Canada covers most of the northern half of North America (much of which is sparsely populated). Alaska, the largest state of the U.S.A., occupies the northwestern part of the continent.
North America consists of all the mainland and related offshore islands lying north of the Isthmus of Panama (which joins with South America). "Anglo-America" can describe Canada and the USA together. "Middle America" is used in reference to the region of Mexico, the republics of Central America, and the Caribbean.
Its natural features include the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachian Mountains (the largest mountains in the east), the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi, Missouri, Rio Grande, and St Lawrence rivers.
Climate is mainly determined, to a large extent, by the latitude, ranging from arctic cold in the north to tropical heat in the south. The western half of North America tends to have wilder and wetter climate than other areas with equivalent latitude, although there are steppes (known as "prairies") and deserts in the "American Southwest" (Arizona, Colorado, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Oklahoma, Texas), along with neighboring parts of Mexico.

To the northwest, North America and Asia are separated by 56 miles across the Bering Strait. [2]. To the northeast, Greenland is 300 miles off the European island of Iceland.
North America features the Mississippi-Missouri river system, with a drainage basin of 1,221,000 square miles. Plant life in the arctic consists mainly of grasses, mosses, and arctic willows. Coniferous trees such as spruce, pine, hemlock, and fir are indigenous to the Canadian and Western U.S. mountain ranges as far as San Francisco.

The east coast of America resembles the opposite coasts on the other side of the Atlantic. The vast majority of North America is located on the North American Plate, with parts of California and western Mexico forming the partial edge of the Pacific Plate; the two plates meet along the San Andreas fault.
The continent can be divided into four great regions (and sub regions): the Great Plains stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Arctic; the geologically young, mountainous west, including the Rocky Mountains, the Great Basin, California and Alaska; the raised but relatively flat plateau of the Canadian Shield in the northeast; and the varied eastern region, which includes the Appalachian Mountains, the coastal plain along the Atlantic seaboard, and the Florida peninsula.[2] Mexico and its long plateaus and cordilleras fall largely in the western region, although the eastern coastal plain does extend south along the Gulf.
The western mountains have split in the middle, into the main range of the Rockies and the Coast Ranges in California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia with the Great Basin (a lower area containing smaller ranges and low-lying deserts) in between. The highest peak is Denali in Alaska.

In the Western Hemisphere, remains of coral reefs lie in Florida, which are estimated to be 10,000 years old; and a skeleton dug up in the Mississippi Delta (in buried forests), near New Orleans, is supposed to have lain there 50,000 years ago. These artifacts could prove that man existed in America prehistorically. New mixed races are distinguished by a variety of names (e.g., Mestizos, Mulattoes, and Zambos), and native ancestors of European parents called Creoles.[7]