North American Adventure Travel

North America is the third largest continent, after Asia and Africa; and the fourth biggest continent in population behind Asia, Africa, and Europe. Below, the term “North America” will be used to refer to the land mass of the two countries of Canada and the United States, the second and third largest countries in the world. In other contexts, Mexico and Greenland may also be included as part of North America; however, when discussing adventure travel on this site Mexico will be included in Latin America and Greenland will be included in Europe.

North America has been inhabited by human beings since the last Ice Age, between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, when primitive men came from Asia via the Bering Land Bridge. From North America these primitive men also quickly spread into Central and South Americas. These primitive men are the ancestors of today’s native Americans. Native Americans occupied North America for more than 20,000 years before the first Europeans arrive in North America.

North America is divided into four great regions: the Great Plains stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian Arctic; the mountainous west, including the Rocky Mountains, the Great Basin, California and Alaska; the raised plateau of the Canadian Shield in the northeast; and the eastern region, with its varied geography of the Appalachian Mountains, the Atlantic seaboard’s coastal plain, and the Florida peninsula.

North America is rich in natural resources; and although both Canada and the United States are highly developed countries, much of North America still remains as wilderness. In modern times, care has been taken to preserve this natural beauty, as evidenced by the nearly 100 national parks located in North America.

North America has nearly 20,000 species of plants and is home to more than 400 species of mammals, 750 species of birds, and 500 species of reptiles and amphibians, as well as over 90,000 species of insects.