This is America!

By Ben Buck, post writer.

People commonly call the United States of America just “America” but it is just 1 of the 23 continental American countries not including the island countries. The name "America" was first recorded on a map made by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller in France in the year of our Lord 1,507, placed in south America. It was the first map to show America as a separate continent instead of part of Asia. In a book that went with the map apparently written by Martin Waldseemüller's collaborator Matthias Ringmann. The booksays "I do not see what right any one would have to object to calling this part [that is, the South American mainland], after Americus who discovered it and who is a man of intelligence, Amerigen, that is, the Land of Americus, or America: since both Europa and Asia got their names from women" But its suspicious because it was not the cartographer who typically named new lands but explorers or monarchs, and it was tradition to only use first names of royal people and last names of other people. His map did not reach Spain until after Amerigo Vespucci's death. So the name may have came from the Amerrisque Mountains in Nicaragua where Christopher Columbus landed on his 4th voyage. Amerrisque means “country of the Wind” so it may have changed to America and then spread by spoken language throughout Europe relatively quickly even reaching Martin Waldseemüller. Either way America became the name of the new double continent. Later the British colonized part of America and called it British America because it was the part of America the British owned. Part of British America became the 13 colonies and became a independent country and called themselves the United States of America because it was colonies that where now states that where united in America. But United States of America is so much work to say that people are lazy and just call it “United states” or “America” but United states could be confused with the United States of Colombia (Year of our Lord 1,863-1,886) or the United Mexican States witch conveniently is in a different order. But you can just call those “Colombia” and “Mexico” without confusion (except for maybe all of America should be called Colombia after Christopher Columbus who usually gets the credit for discovering it. Also there is British Colombia and the district of Colombia.) So if you are too lazy to say “United States of America” its better to say “United States” because the United States of Colombia don't exist anymore and Mexico is in a different order, but if you call it America then it can be confused with the double continent of America which in some countries is considered 1 continent called America. Or you could call it the USA which if they know what it stands for they won't be confused. As for what you call someone from the United States of America, most people call them Americans but this is confused with Americans. Some people call them “United-Statesian” which is better but a Mexican could be a United-Statesian just as easily. So you can call them US Americans but this is lazy so they should be called “United States of Americans” calling the United States of America “America” is like calling France “Eurasia” and comparing America and Canada is like comparing Eurasia and Spain. That makes no sense! And calling United States of Americans “Americans” would be like calling people from Central African Republic “Africans”. So the United States of America is in America and people from the United States of America are United States of Americans! The problem is that the United States of America does not have a name, just a title of what it is.