The landmasses of North and South America collectively, named after Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. Refers to the Western Hemisphere continents.
Named after Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512), Italian explorer whose first name was Latinized as 'Americus.' German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller first applied this name to the New World in 1507.
It's one of history's greatest naming ironies that the Americas are named after Amerigo Vespucci rather than Christopher Columbus, even though Columbus arrived first! Vespucci's letters describing his voyages were widely published and he was the first to recognize that these were entirely new continents, not just islands off the coast of Asia.
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