Why many people from USA think America to be only their country?

Question

don't they know that many other huge American nations exist; Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, etc.

USA is only one country of America.

Answer 1

umm...no, none of those countries you listed are a part of the USA. When we say America, we are referring to the USA not to the continent of North America or South America. Geographically speaking, there is no "America".

Answer 2

Canada and Mexico are in NORTH American contient

America is the USA

Answer 3

Well, Germans and Poles think so as well. The word in Germany for "United States citizen" is: Amerikaner/Amerikanerin. In Polish, the word is amerykanski. The word in English is "American". Citizens of Canada are called Canadian. Citizens of Mexico are called Mexican. Citizens of Brazil are Brazilian. True, America is a continent, but the overall world view is that US citizens are called Americans, and we can't help that. It's not the US citizens that refer to themselves and the US as America. Again, US in German is "Amerika". I always say I'm from the US, but they always respond with Amerika. I can't help it.

Answer 4

Well we say we're from the United States, but we don't say we're United Statesian or United States of American.

I guess it's just easier to say we're American. Besides, those other nations listed are not American. America is a country whereas North America and South America are continents.

Answer 5

That depends on how you define "America" and it isn't only people in the United States of America (formal name of the country) who use the less formal and shorter name of America for it.  In this country, the usage is so common that we use "North America" to or "South America" to refer to the the continental masses or "Pan America" to refer to the whole aggregate of North, Central, and South America.

Before the Soviet Union broke up, we often referred to it as Russia, even though Russia is only one of many countries in the former Soviet Union.  Calling the USSR "Russia" wasn't entirely accurate but the name was shorter and easier to pronounce and did not normally result in any ambiguity in practice.

Some of the other countries on the American continents do indeed compare in land area to the U.S. but not in population, economic, or political size.  In those respects, the United States more directly compares to the entire continents of Europe or Africa.  In these respects, most countries would more directly compare to one or another of the individual states.  If the individual state of California were a separate country, its economy would rank somewhere about #6 in size, more or less, depending on how the economy is going, to those of other countries in the world, but that is still only about one tenth of the United States as a whole.

Answer 6

"American" is just the generally accepted term in the English Language for a person from the USA.  In the Spanish language we'd say we're "de los Estatos Unidos" (from the United States.)  Don't try to start a war over semantics, people from Brazil don't say they're South American, they say they're Brazilian.  We use the term American not because we don't think there are other countries in North and South America, but because our country's name is the United States of AMERICA.

Answer 7

Tony Blair the former Prime Minister of England said "I judge any nation not by how many people are leaving, but how many want in." How many people from these other countries are currently risking everything to get into the United States?

And how many once they're here, go back to where they came from? THAT'S WHY!!!!

Answer 8

America is my only country.  The United States of America shares the North American Continent.  It does not mean we all share citizenship of the same country.