North America: Media
continent
Videos
How the billion-year-old Midcontinent Rift helped form Lake Superior.
Video: Courtesy of Northwestern University (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Learn about a controversial 2017 study that used thorium/uranium dating of broken...
Video: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Learn about the total solar eclipse of April 8, 2024, by watching this NASA visualization...
Video: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio
The distribution of the seven continents.
Video: Created and produced by QA International. © QA International, 2010. All rights reserved. www.qa-international.com
Images
Autumn vegetation in Denali National Park and Preserve, south-central Alaska, U.S.,...
Robert Glusic/Getty Images
A small farm is nestled in the rugged highlands of central Honduras.
D. Donne Bryant/D.Donne Bryant Stock
Map depicting the extent of the Canadian Shield in North America. The Canadian Shield...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
At the San Andreas Fault in California, the North American Plate and the Pacific...
U.S. Geological Survey
The Snake River flowing through Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, southern...
Courtesy of Annette Rousseau/U.S. National Park Service
A rock formation called “faux amphibolite,” from the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt...
Jonathan O'Neil
Precambrian bedrock of the Canadian Shield rising out of Reindeer Lake, on the border...
© Richard Alexander Cooke III
Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation on the Colorado Plateau, west of Green...
Ankyman
The Chicxulub crater at the northwestern point of the Yucatán Peninsula was formed...
NASA/JPL
Coast Ranges meeting the Pacific coast at Big Sur, west-central California, U.S.
© Andy Z./Shutterstock.com
Adirondack Mountains in autumn, northern New York.
© Denis Tangney, Jr.—iStock/Getty Images
The Younger Dryas event was characterized by a substantial and relatively sudden...
Mount Washington seen from the Saco River, near Conway, New Hampshire.
Dick Smith
Rocky Mountains, a mountain range in western North America.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Snow-covered high peaks of the Brooks Range, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, northeastern...
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Moonrise over a mesa in Grand Canyon National Park, northwestern Arizona, U.S.
Robert Glusic/Getty Images
Wetlands area in the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge Complex, Sacramento Valley,...
© Ann Cantelow/Shutterstock.com
Olympic Mountains in Olympic National Park, northwestern Washington, U.S.
Ray Atkeson/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Sinforosa Canyon in the Tarahumara Mountains, part of the Sierra Madre Occidental...
Walter Aguiar/Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
An esker, a narrow ridge of gravel and sand left by a retreating glacier, winds through...
© Richard Alexander Cooke III
University Hill (left) and Carnegie Hill, Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, northwestern...
Nebular110
Illinois River at Starved Rock State Park, Utica, Illinois.
© chrisp0—iStock/Getty Images
A barge traveling down the Mississippi River in Louisiana.
© Thinkstock—Stockbyte/Getty Images
A
tugboat
makes its way
on the Mackenzie River in the delta region near Inuvik, Northwest...
© Mike Beedell/Comstock
The sand dunes of Padre Island, Texas, a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico.
© Karen Foley/Dreamstime.com
Marquette Harbor Lighthouse on Lake Superior, Marquette, Michigan.
Dale Fisher, US Army Corps of Engineers
Dog team moving across Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada.
Gordon Wiltsie/AlpenImage, Ltd.
The town of Dawson on the Yukon River, Yukon, Canada.
© Karoline Cullen/Shutterstock.com
Passenger ship near source of St. Lawrence River at Lake Ontario.
© benedek—iStock/Getty Images
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Boreal forest, Alaska, U.S., dominated by spruce trees (Picea).
Erwin & Peggy Bauer/Bruce Coleman Ltd.
The enormous width of the continent in the higher latitudes has led to a great extension...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc./Kenny Chmielewski
Average annual precipitation in North America.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Inside Passage, Misty Fjords National Monument, Alaska.
© barbaraaaa—iStock/Getty Images
Douglas fir trees (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in the Pacific coniferous forest...
© Pat O'Hara
Boreal forest (taiga) in early autumn, with white spruce, birch, and low shrubs,...
Photograph, © George Wuerthner
Wild male turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) in Texas.
Rolf Nussbaumer/Nature Picture Library
Mangroves and palms line the Loxahatchee River in southeastern Florida.
Photograph, © George Wuerthner
Lianas in a tropical rainforest. The vascular tissues of lianas are modified primarily...
© Gary Braasch
NASA satellite image of Cape Dezhnyov, the easternmost point of the Chukchi Peninsula,...
NASA/GSFC/JPL, MISR Team
A 16th-century painting depicting Aztecs building a chinampa.
Art Archive—Picture Desk/SuperStock
Altun Ha, a Mayan pyramid temple, northern Belize. The site was a major ceremonial...
© Laszlo Halasi/Dreamstime.com
Leaders from five Iroquois nations (Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca)...
From Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-1881, edited by J.W. Powell, 1883
Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar giving Hernán Cortés command of the expedition to Mexico;...
De Agostini Editore/age fotostock
The Château Frontenac hotel (centre background), Upper Town, rising above buildings...
© Creatas/JupiterImages
A map from 1758 showing the middle British colonies in North America as well as the...
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (G3710 Ar071300)
Irish emigrants departing from Queenstown (Cobh) harbour for the United States; illustration...
© Photos.com/Getty Images
Detail of a British broadside depicting the ship Brooks and the manner in which more...
© Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com
Pillsbury Mine in the Mesabi Range, near Hibbing, Minnesota.
Milt and Joan Mann/CameraMann International
Kennecott's Bingham Canyon Mine, Utah, U.S.
© Royce Bair—Moment/Getty Images
Mixed evergreen and hardwood forest cover the slopes of the Adirondack Mountains...
Jerome Wyckoff
Lobster traps with buoys on the shore of a fishing village in Maine, U.S.
© leekris/Fotolia
Wheat field in Kansas, U.S. An annual crop, wheat is sown and harvested in a single...
© Ricardo Reitmeyer/Dreamstime.com
Bright leaf tobacco leaves hanging to dry in an open-air barn in Kentucky, U.S.
© Anne Kitzman/Shutterstock.com
Harvesting wheat on a farm in the grain belt near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada....
George Hunter
Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River, east-central Washington, U.S.
David Brodbeck
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline running parallel to a highway north of Fairbanks.
© Rainer Grosskopf—Photodisc/Getty Images
Containers of nuclear waste stored above ground at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant,...
United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission
U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter showing reporters the solar panels he had installed on the...
Jimmy Carter Library
(From left) Mexican Pres. Carlos Salinas de Gortari, U.S. Pres. George H.W. Bush,...
AP Images
A crane handling lumber at a mill in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
The confluence of the Kanawha and Ohio rivers at Point Pleasant, West Virginia, U.S.
Charles Johnson/U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Trans-Canada Highway, with an overpass for wildlife crossings, in Banff National...
Qyd
Aerial view of Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, showing runways and terminals...
© Stockbyte/Getty Images
The location of the Alberta tar sands region and its associated oil pipelines.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Distribution of boreal forests in the Western Hemisphere.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
The location of Earth's continents at various times between 225 million years ago...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Map of the emergence years for cicada broods in the eastern United States.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc./Kenny Chmielewski
Smoke from Central American forest fires drifting...
Goddard Space Flight Center/NASA
Global seismic centres for earthquakes of magnitude 5.5 and greater occurring between...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
A map showing the locations of plague outbreaks in the 1800s and early 1900s.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
(Top) Indigenous communities in Canada and (bottom) reservations in the United States.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Migration routes of Native Americans.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
The orange, pink, green, and purple areas are those that were covered by ice sheets...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
The Alaskan mountain ranges and the Mackenzie and Yukon river basins and their drainage...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
The Rio Grande basin and its drainage network.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Physical features of western North America.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Figure 3: Proportions of breeding birds in North America that migrate to the Neotropics.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Rossby wave patterns over the North Pole depicting the formation of an outbreak of...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
The global distribution of human skin colour is a well-defined example of genetic...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Soils of North America, distribution of soil groups as classified by the Food and...
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Distribution of songbirds in North and South America.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
A map of North America showing the path of the total solar eclipse of April 8. 2024.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc./Kenny Chmielewski
Historical Flags: Dutch
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Historical Flag: English
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Historical Flag: French
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Historical Flags: Spanish
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Historical Flag: Swedish
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
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