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Latin America is a collective region of the Americas where Romance languages—languages derived from Latin—are predominantly spoken. The term was coined in France in the mid-19th century to refer to regions in the Americas that were ruled by the Spanish, Portuguese, and French empires.

The term does not have a precise definition, but it is "commonly used to describe South America, Central America, Mexico, and the islands of the Caribbean". In a narrow sense, it refers to Spanish America and Brazil (Portuguese America). The term "Latin America" is broader than Hispanic America, which specifically refers to Spanish-speaking countries, and categories such as Ibero-America, a term that refers to both Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries from the Americas, and sometimes from Europe.

The term Latin America was first used in Paris at a conference in 1856 called "Initiative of America: Idea for a Federal Congress of the Republics" (Iniciativa de la América. Idea de un Congreso Federal de las Repúblicas), by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao. The term was further popularized by French emperor Napoleon III's government of political strongman that in the 1860s as Amérique latine to justify France's military involvement in the Second Mexican Empire and to include French-speaking territories in the Americas, such as French Canada, Haiti, French Louisiana, French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe and the French Antillean Creole Caribbean islands Saint Lucia, and Dominica, in the larger group of countries where Spanish and Portuguese languages prevailed.

The region covers an area that stretches from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego and includes much of the Caribbean. It has an area of approximately 19,197,000 km² (7,412,000 sq mi), almost 13% of the Earth's land surface area. In 2019, Latin America had a combined nominal GDP of US$5,188,250 trillion and a GDP PPP of US$10,284,588 trillion. (Full article...)

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Reconstructed T. sethi skeleton (the postcranium is hypothetical) with Anhanguera behind, National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo

Thalassodromeus is a genus of pterosaur that lived in what is now Brazil during the Early Cretaceous period, about a hundred million years ago. The original skull, discovered in 1983 in the Araripe Basin of northeastern Brazil, was collected in several pieces. In 2002, the skull was made the holotype specimen of Thalassodromeus sethi by palaeontologists Alexander Kellner and Diogenes de Almeida Campos. The generic name means "sea runner" (in reference to its supposed mode of feeding), and the specific name refers to the Egyptian god Seth due to its crest being supposedly reminiscent of Seth's crown. Other scholars have pointed out that the crest was instead similar to the crown of Amon. A jaw tip was assigned to T. sethi in 2005, became the basis of the new genus Banguela in 2014, and assigned back to Thalassodromeus as the species T. oberlii in 2018. Another species (T. sebesensis) was described in 2015 based on a supposed crest fragment, but this was later shown to be part of a turtle shell.

Thalassodromeus had one of the largest known skulls among pterosaurs, around 1.42 m (4 ft 8 in) long, with one of the proportionally largest cranial crests of any vertebrate. Though only the skull is known, the animal is estimated to have had a wingspan of 4.2 to 4.5 m (14 to 15 ft). The crest was lightly built and ran from the tip of the upper jaw to beyond the back of the skull, ending in a unique V-shaped notch. The jaws were toothless, and had sharp upper and lower edges. Its skull had large nasoantorbital fenestrae (opening that combined the antorbital fenestra in front of the eye with the bony nostril), and part of its palate was concave. The lower jaw was blade-like, and may have turned slightly upwards. The closest relative of Thalassodromeus was Tupuxuara; both are grouped in a clade that has been placed within either Tapejaridae (as the subfamily Thalassodrominae) or within Neoazhdarchia (as the family Thalassodromidae). (Full article...)

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... Juan Vucetich, an Argentine chief police officier, created the first method of recording the fingerprints of individuals on file?

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Top, left to right: National Palace of El Salvador, Zona Rosa (San Salvador), Temple of El Salvador, Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador, Skyline of San Salvador, Zona Rosa and Cuscatlán Stadium

San Salvador (Spanish pronunciation: [san salβaˈðoɾ];) is the capital and the largest city of El Salvador and its eponymous department. It is the country's political, cultural, educational and financial center. The Municipality of San Salvador has 209,633 inhabitants (2020). The Metropolitan Area of San Salvador, which comprises the capital itself and 13 of its municipalities, has a population of 2,404,097. The urban area of San Salvador has a population of 1,600,000 inhabitants.

The city is home to the Consejo de Ministros de El Salvador (Council of Ministries of El Salvador), the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador, the Supreme Court of El Salvador, and other governmental institutions, as well as the official residence of the President of El Salvador. San Salvador is located in the Salvadoran highlands, surrounded by volcanoes and prone to earthquakes. The city is also home to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Salvador, as well as many Protestant branches of Christianity, including Evangelicals, Baptists, and Pentecostals, and the restorationist Christian sect the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Full article...)

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... that Franz Grave, the first bishop of Essen born in Essen, focused on intercultural dialogue with Latin America?
... that despite an attempted "extermination" of homosexuals in the 1960s and 1970s, the LGBT community in Argentina is now the most accepted in Latin America?
... that Brazilian computer science researcher and internet pioneer Tadao Takahashi negotiated with drug lords to install internet equipment in his country?
... that the Latin American travesti gender identity has been considered to be a third gender, akin to the hijras of India and the muxe of Mexico?
... that UK prime minister Rishi Sunak complained when a joint declaration was made at a summit between the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States that used the term Islas Malvinas?

General images

The following are images from various Latin America-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The military junta of Argentina saw widespread repression against those it deemed to be political dissidents (from History of Latin America)
Image 2Villa de Leyva, a historical and cultural landmark of Colombia (from Latin American culture)
Image 31903 political cartoon: President Roosevelt intimidating Colombia to acquire the Panama Canal Zone. (from History of Latin America)
Image 4Fiambre, Guatemalan traditional dish, eaten on November 1, the Day of the Dead (from Latin American culture)
Image 5Countries in Latin America by date of independence (from History of Latin America)
Image 6A 17th-century map of the Americas (from History of Latin America)
Image 7Mexican Stock Exchange (from Latin American culture)
Image 8Instituto Arnoldo Gabaldón, declared August 30, 1984, as a National Historic Landmark (from Latin American culture)
Image 9The Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Aparecida is the second largest in the world, after only of the Basilica of Saint Peter in Vatican City. (from Latin American culture)
Image 10Intermediate level international-style Latin dancing at the 2006 MIT ballroom dance competition. A judge stands in the foreground. (from Latin American culture)
Image 11The joropo, as depicted in a 1912 drawing by Eloy Palacios (from Latin American culture)
Image 12The Guadalajara International Film Festival is considered the most prestigious film festival in Latin America. (from Latin American culture)
Image 13Left-leaning leaders of Bolivia, Brazil and Chile at the Union of South American Nations summit in 2008 (from History of Latin America)
Image 14Monument to Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City (from Latin American culture)
Image 15In blue countries under right-wing governments and in red countries under left-wing and centre-left governments as of 2023 (from History of Latin America)
Image 16Holy week, Ouro Preto-MG, 2010. Chrome. Photo: Guy Veloso. (from Latin American culture)

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Credit: Rodrigo Achá

Panorama of La Paz, the capital and second largest city in population (after Santa Cruz de la Sierra) of Bolivia. The city hosts numerous local festivities, and is an important cultural center of Bolivia.

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Hands at the Cuevas de las Manos upon Río Pinturas, near the town of Perito Moreno in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina

Cueva de las Manos

Credit: Mariano

Cueva de las Manos (Spanish for Cave of Hands) is a cave or a series of caves located in the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina, 163 km (101 mi) south of the town of Perito Moreno. It is famous for (and gets its name from) the paintings of hands. The art in the cave dates from 13,000 to 9,000 years ago.Several waves of people occupied the cave, and early artwork has been carbon-dated to ca. 9300 BP (about 7300 BC). The age of the paintings was calculated from the remains of bone-made pipes used for spraying the paint on the wall of the cave to create silhouettes of hands. The site was last inhabited around 700 AD, possibly by ancestors of the Tehuelche people. It was entered on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1991.