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Central America is the region of North
America located between the southern border of Mexico and the northwest
border of Colombia, in South America. Some geographers classify Central
America as a large isthmus, and in this geographic sense it sometimes
includes the portion of Mexico east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, namely
the Mexican states of Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche, Yucatán and
Quintana Roo. However, Central America is much more commonly understood
to correspond with the nations between Mexico and Colombia.
In this most common definition, Central
America consists of the countries of:
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Belize
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Honduras
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El Salvador
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Nicaragua
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Costa Rica
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Panama
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Central America thus has an area of about
540,000 km² (208,500 square miles), and a width between the Pacific
Ocean and the Caribbean Sea ranging from about 560 km to about 50 km (350
miles to about 30 miles).
Additionally, there was a nation of Central
America in the early 19th century, consisting of the present day nations
of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica (and a
portion of the modern Mexican state of Chiapas). This was sometimes known
as the United Provinces of Central America or the United States of Central
America.
The related term Mesoamerica (occasionally
also called "Middle America") is used in English mostly restricted
to referring to the Pre-Columbian Native American cultures of this region,
which extended north into central Mexico. |
