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Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

Out of curiousity, what is the division you know, and where did you get it from?

Don't know about probably_wrong, but I learned that the americas are divided into South, Central and North, with Mexico usually in Central America. Got it in geography class in Brazil.

I've never seen this definition, but I've seen two different ones that were often confused: the division in North, Central and South Americas where Mexico belongs to North America, and the division in Anglo-Saxonic and Latin Americas where Mexico belogs to the latter.

Are you sure you're not mixing them up? I'm asking because I've seen people mix them up so frequently, in some cases you can even find notices in geoography books making this clear.

The UN includes Mexico in Central America:

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm

Central America is a subset of North America, but its not defined particularly consistently. Mexico belongs to North America, and it may also be part of Central America, depending on which definition is used (the major difference between the most common definitions of Central America is whether or not Mexico is included.)

I was referring to Carioca's view, which I also learned in school.

There's another one, too, over which I've had internet arguments before. In that one, the USA and Canada are "America", while the rest of the continent is "South America".

The given reason was: it is not called "United States of North America", it's just "America". The rest of the countries are south from there, so all that region is "South America". I don't know how extended this vision is, though (nor I know where it fits Mexico).

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