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| Area | 17,840,000 km2
(6,890,000 sq mi) |
| Population | 385,742,554 (2008, 5th) |
| Density | 21.4 per km2 (56.0 per sq mi) |
| Demonym | South American, American |
| Countries | 12 |
| List Countries | List of sovereign states and dependent territories in South America |
| Dependencies | 3 |
| Languages | List of languages |
| Time | UTC-2 to UTC-5 |
| Cities |
Brazil Sao Paulo
Argentina Buenos Aires
Brazil Rio de Janeiro
Peru Lima
Colombia Bogotá
Chile Santiago
Brazil Belo Horizonte
Venezuela Caracas
Brazil Porto Alegre
Brazil Brasília |
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South America ( , Sudamérica or Suramérica; ; Quechua and Aymara: Urin Awya Yala; ; ; ) is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean; North America and the Caribbean Sea lie to the northwest. It includes twelve countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The South American nations that border the Caribbean Sea-including Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, as well as French Guiana, which is an overseas region of France-are also known as Caribbean South America.
South America has an area of 17,840,000 square kilometers (6,890,000 sq mi). Its population as of 2005 has been estimated at more than 371,090,000. South America ranks fourth in area (after Asia, Africa, and North America) and fifth in population (after Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America).
The word America was coined in 1507 by cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann, after Amerigo Vespucci, who was the first European to suggest that the lands newly discovered by Europeans were not India, but a New World unknown to Europeans.
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