North America

D

Manufacturing

Manufacturing has long been a leading economic sector of the United States. The principal concentrations of factories have been located in the urban areas of a manufacturing belt extending roughly from Boston to Chicago. Since the 1950s, however, manufacturing has expanded considerably in other parts of the country, particularly in the big cities of California and in the south-eastern states. Output is extremely diversified, with emphasis on primary and fabricated metals, processed food, machinery, electronic and aerospace equipment, motor vehicles, chemicals, textiles, clothing, paper, and printed materials. Manufacturing is also a principal economic activity in Canada. Factories are situated primarily in the cities of Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta; Toronto and Montreal are the leading manufacturing centres. Canadian firms produce a wide variety of goods, especially processed food and beverages, transport equipment, paper and other forest products, primary and fabricated metals, chemicals, and electrical and electronic equipment.

Manufacturing has become an increasingly important part of the Mexican economy since the 1940s. Although not as technologically developed as in the United States and Canada, factories in Mexico produce a broad spectrum of goods, notably chemicals, clothing, processed food, motor vehicles and motor-vehicle parts, construction materials, and electrical and electronic equipment. Mexico City is by far the leading manufacturing centre, but several other cities, including Monterrey and Guadalajara, have important concentrations of factories.

E

Energy

North America consumes great quantities of energy. Canada depends much more on hydroelectricity than do the United States and Mexico, but it also makes heavy use of petroleum and natural gas. The enormous consumption of energy in the United States requires great imports of petroleum and natural gas to bolster the considerable domestic output of coal, petroleum, natural gas, and hydroelectric and nuclear power. Mexico's energy production expanded considerably in the 1970s and early 1980s, primed by the increased domestic recovery of petroleum and natural gas.

F

Transport

The transport network of North America is extremely well developed in most parts of the conterminous United States and in southernmost Canada. A remarkable system of limited-access interstate highways was built in the United States beginning in the 1950s, and the country in addition has a wide-ranging network of other all-weather roads. The rail network is also well established; it is critical for many types of freight transport but is a relatively unimportant passenger carrier. Air traffic grew considerably after 1945, and an expansive network of routes was created. Inland waterways, particularly the St Lawrence Seaway-Great Lakes system and the Mississippi-Missouri river system, are important freight-transport routes. Central and northern Canada and Alaska have only limited surface transport facilities and depend heavily on air service. The interior transport systems of Mexico are unevenly developed. All three countries have extensive modern facilities for handling ocean-going vessels.

G

Trade

The United States is by far the leading trade partner for both Canada and Mexico, which in turn are significant, but not dominant, trade partners of the United States. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which took effect on January 1, 1994, outlined the elimination of trade barriers between the three nations over the following 15 years. In 1994 NAFTA countries had a combined population of more than 380 million and a combined gross national product of nearly $2 trillion. NAFTA forms one of the two largest free trade zones in the world. The organization is expected to add member nations from the region.

Primary US exports are machinery, motor vehicles, foodstuffs, chemicals, and aircraft. Canada mainly exports motor vehicles, machinery, metal and metal ore, forest products, chemicals, and foodstuffs, and the major exports of Mexico are crude petroleum, coffee, and metal ore. At the end of the 1980s the value of Canada's annual exports exceeded that of its imports, whereas the United States and Mexico regularly paid more for imports than their exports earned. The United States ranks among the world's leading trading countries in terms of the total value of imports and exports.

V

History

According to archaeological evidence, human occupation of North America began during the Pleistocene epoch of the Quaternary period, perhaps as long ago as 50 bc. People of the Mongolian race are thought to have migrated to the continent from Asia over a land bridge across what is now the Bering Strait. From these beginnings human habitation is thought to have slowly spread south and eastwards.

These earliest inhabitants were Stone Age people, who lived by hunting and gathering, using implements not unlike those known from south-eastern Asia. They were later supplanted by other migrants with more advanced tools. These people are believed to be the earliest ancestors of the Native North Americans who developed complex cultures and inhabited the continent at the time when Europeans first arrived. (For a detailed discussion of Native American history and culture, See Native Americans; Archaeology.)

Greenland, geologically a part of North America, was the first part of the western hemisphere reached by Europeans. According to Icelandic sagas, it was first explored and settled by Eric the Red, although small groups of Irish monks probably preceded them by as much as a century. The first European to see any part of the continental mainland was probably Bjarni Herjólfsson, an Icelandic trader, who sighted it about ad 986. Then Leif Ericson, the son of Eric the Red, made a voyage to a land he called Vinland or Wineland, believed to have been somewhere between Labrador and New England. This account was partly substantiated by the discovery in 1963 of a Viking-type settlement site at L'Anse-aux-Meadows, near the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland. The ruins were determined to be from about 1000.