(4) Mexico.
(5) The Central American republics of Honduras, Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, together with Panama—unless its southern part be regarded as belonging to the South American continent.
(6) The West Indian republics of Hayti and San Domingo.
(7) The Dutch West Indies.
(See the articles on the separate states and colonies.)
THE UNITED STATES
The republic of the United States is by far the most populous, wealthy, and progressive country of all the New World.
Location and Extent.—It occupies the most valuable portion of the North American continent, the whole of it (with the exception of the territory of Alaska) lying within the temperate zone, between Canada on the north and Mexico on the south, and reaching across from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
Its boundary toward the Canadian Dominion passes through the Haro, or northern channel of the Strait of San Juan de Fuca, south of Vancouver Island, and thence along the forty-ninth parallel of latitude to Lake Superior; then midway through the center of the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence, and down that river to the forty-fifth parallel, and an irregular boundary which separates New Brunswick from the States of New York and Maine, terminating at Passamaquoddy Bay.
In the south, the Mexican frontier runs from the Pacific coast, northward of the peninsula of California, to the Rio Grande del Norte, which it follows to the Gulf of Mexico.