Countries visited
North America is the third largest of the world’s continents, lying for the most part between the Arctic Circle and the Tropic of Cancer. It extends for more than 5,000 miles (8,000 km) to within 500 miles (800 km) of both the North Pole and the Equator and has an east-west extent of 5,000 miles. It covers an area of 9,355,000 square miles (24,230,000 square km).
North America occupies the northern portion of the landmass generally referred to as the New World, the Western Hemisphere, or simply the Americas. Mainland North America is shaped roughly like a triangle, with its base in the north and its apex in the south; associated with the continent is Greenland, the largest island in the world, and such offshore groups as the Arctic Archipelago, the West Indies, Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands), and the Aleutian Islands.
North America is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Caribbean Sea, and the west by the North Pacific Ocean. To the northeast Greenland is separated from Iceland by the Denmark Strait, and to the northwest Alaska is separated from the Asian mainland by the much narrower Bering Strait. North America’s only land connection is to South America at the narrow Isthmus of Panama. Denali (Mount McKinley) in Alaska, rising 20,310 feet (6,190 metres) above sea level, is the continent’s highest point, and Death Valley in California, at 282 feet (86 metres) below sea level, is its lowest. North America’s coastline of some 37,000 miles (60,000 km)—the second longest of the continents after Asia—is notable for the great number of indentations, particularly in the northern half.