[ska]

>whose physical presence spans a majority of a major continent,

I take your point, but this part isn't true. Canada is a little larger, and then there is also Mexico which is about 1/2 the size, so US is roughly 2/5ths of North America.

[bombcar]

uS is over 9m sq kms, Mexico is under 2.

Canada is larger than the US but if the US extended its northern border 50 miles Canada wouldn’t have any population left.

[ska]

Oh you’re right about relative size of Mexico - my memory had a units error (km vs mi). Still, it’s not even as big as Canada so the statement wasn’t close to right…. It’s a bit under 9/20