Just to clarify because it was unclear to me and areas are unintuitive with map projections, it's 1.5 times the size of the United States. The U.S is ~10 million km^2, Antarctica 14 million km^2, and the American continent 42 million km^2
Geographically speaking, we then have North America (Canada, USA), Central America (Mexico to strait of Panama), South America, and Caribbeans.
One is history class (much more meaningful when you are old enough to understand human nature) and another is mercator projections.
I always thought Canada was so much bigger than the US but they're about the same size - 3.5m sq miles.
That's why for centuries the globes were both produced and used:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdapfel
Globes -- since 1492. Every child can understand that.
Population density was hard for 9 year old me to grasp. But oh, boy, was I certain I was right.
You can thank Mercator for that. And, these days, Google and Apple for still using it (Google Maps is a globe on PC but still Mercator on iOS. Apple Maps is Mercator only).
That's because the largest state, Alaska, appears like its a part of the Canadian landmass
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Worlds_a...