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It has been suggested that this article be merged into United Nations geoscheme for the Americas. (Discuss) Proposed since April 2024.
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The term Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC[1]) is an English-language acronym referring to the Latin American and the Caribbean region. The term LAC covers an extensive region, extending from The Bahamas and MexicotoArgentina and Chile. The region has over 670,230,000 people as of 2016[update],[citation needed] and spanned for 21,951,000 square kilometres (8,475,000 sq mi).[citation needed]
Various countries within the Latin American and the Caribbean region do not use either Spanish, PortugueseorFrench as official languages, but rather EnglishorDutch.[citation needed]
Cuba
Dominican Republic
Haiti
Jamaica
Navassa Island*
Puerto Rico (United States)* Disputed territory administered by the United States, claimedbyHaiti.
Antigua and Barbuda
Barbados
British Virgin Islands (United Kingdom)
Dominica
Dutch Caribbean
Federal Dependencies (Venezuela)
Grenada
Guadeloupe (France)
Martinique (France)
Montserrat (United Kingdom)
Nueva Esparta (Venezuela)
Saint Barthélemy (France)
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Martin (France)
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Spanish Virgin Islands (Puerto Rico)
Trinidad and Tobago
U.S. Virgin Islands (United States)
Turks and Caicos Islands (United Kingdom)
Costa Rica
El Salvador
Guatemala
Honduras
Mexico†
Nicaragua
Panama† The UN geoscheme includes MexicoinCentral America.[2]
San Andrés and Providencia (Colombia)
Serranilla Bank** Disputed territories administered by Colombia, claimed by the United States.
Bolivia
Bouvet Island† (Norway)
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Falkland Islands / Islas Malvinas*
French Guiana (France)
Guyana
Paraguay
Peru
Suriname
Trinidad and Tobago
Uruguay
Venezuela† The UN geoscheme includes Bouvet IslandinSouth America instead of AntarcticaorAfrica.
* Disputed territories administered by the United Kingdom, claimedbyArgentina.
Bermuda (United Kingdom)
Saint Pierre and Miquelon (France)The region has a unique history and varied between stability to instability, included various deadly conflicts, though its level remains conflicted. The two deadliest conflicts in the region are the Colombian conflict and the Mexican drug war; and more recently, the crisis in Venezuela and Gang war in Haiti. Some other bloody conflicts include the internal conflict in Peru and gang wars in Argentina, Brazil, and Honduras. Other conflicts include the Mapuche conflict in Argentina and Chile; and the Insurgency in Paraguay. These conflicts, however, have received lesser attentions from international media, and varied by time.[citation needed]
The Latin American and Caribbean countries with the most representative democracy were Costa Rica, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, and Jamaica and least democratic were Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela according to 2024 V-Dem Democracy Report.[3]
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0.900–1.000
0.800–0.899
0.700–0.799
0.600–0.699
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0.500–0.599
0.400–0.499
0.300–0.399
0.200–0.299
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0.100–0.199
0.000–0.099
No data
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Most countries are dominated by Christianity, the largest being Roman Catholic. Smaller groups include Protestantism (including Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses) and Orthodoxy and other forms of Christianity. There are many venerated folk saints and folk religions namely folk catholicism as well as african diaspora religions (syncretic african traditional religions) as well as Native American religions including shamanism. Many folk healers also practice folk magic. Specific Creole peoples often have their own religions/spiritual practices like the Maroons's Rastafari and Garifuna's belief system (orNew Orleans Voodoo and Melungeon in North America).[citation needed]
Especially in the Caribbean, Central America and Brasil, there are Jewish (including Messianic Jews), Muslim, Hindu, Baháʼí Faith (especially in Panama, Bolivia and Belize), Buddhist, Shinto and Romani mythology, Chinese folk religion, Dravidian folk religion (among others) practitioners. The Muslims and especially Jews and Gitanos are often descendants of the peoples forced into Crypto-Judaism and Crypto-Islam (and even Crypto-Paganism, for lack of a better term) from the Reconquista. There most likely is Sikh and Jainist groups (and possibly even smaller Zoroastrianism, Samaritan and Druze groups). There is also a growing movement of unitarian universalism/new age/neo-paganism-type unorganized spirituality; goddess worship is especially popular with younger, often progressive people like feminists. Again, these movements are often also syncretic, such as Pachamama or other Pre-Columbian Deity worship. Atheism/Agnosticism is quite dichotomous with a few countries having high percentages, but most are small and may be growing slowly.[citation needed]
The region is extremely popular for its own distinct music which can not be found somewhere in the world. Began since the conquest of Spain, France, Britain, the Netherlands and Portugal in 15th century, due to the greater diversification including indigenous, Asian, African and European population merged, it expanded popularity of their music, dated from 1950s and rampant globalization, music from the region has become widely noticed, and has been nominated for several music awards.[4]
The region is rich at sporting activities, especially in association football, which have some of the world's strongest football teams, including Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and others. Baseball, tennis, cycling, volleyball, rugby union, basketball, hockey, and cricket are also popular.[citation needed]
The region is known for producing significant mixed martial-arts fighters, notably competing in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Mexico and Brazil being the ones that stand out in this sport.[5][6]
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N.B.: Territories in italics are parts of transregional sovereign states or non-sovereign dependencies. ^These three form the SSS islands that with the ABC islands comprise the Dutch Caribbean, of which *the BES islands are not direct Kingdom constituents but subsumed with the country of the Netherlands. †Physiographically, these continental islands are not part of the volcanic Windward Islands arc, although sometimes grouped with them culturally and politically. ǂDisputed territories administered by Guyana. ~Disputed territories administered by Colombia. #Bermuda is an isolated North Atlantic oceanic island, physiographically not part of the Lucayan Archipelago, Antilles, Caribbean Sea nor North American continental nor South American continental islands. It is grouped with the Northern American region, but occasionally also with the Caribbean region culturally. | |||||
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