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Latin America/ Caribbean
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Latin America (Spanish: América Latina or Latinoamérica; Portuguese: América Latina; French: Amérique latine) is the region of the Americas where Romance languages (i.e., those derived from Latin), particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French, are primarily spoken.
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.;
More literally 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, and 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 imply cultural kinship with France and 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, St. Lucia, Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines 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, and that speak languages stemming from Latin. Under this definition, much of the U.S. Southwest, Florida, and Louisiana would be also included in the region.;
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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