North America: Canada and Alaska, USA

Contemporary animation, film, and games: Canada and Alaska, USA

Regional Background

Continent settled between 40,000 and 20,000 years ago by people moving across the Pacific by land or sea and across the Atlantic (Clovis people)
Vikings explored but didn’t successfully colonise in the 10th century
After Christopher Columbus “discovered” the island of Hispaniola in 1492, successive waves of colonization by major European powers commenced

The Spanish arrived in 1565 (Florida, USA)
The British arrived in 1587 (Virginia, USA)
The French arrived in 1608 (Quebec, Canada)
The Dutch arrived in 1609 (NYC, USA)
The slave trade began to bring Africans into the region in 1619
The Russians arrived in 1733 and followed the otters (Alaska, California, and Hawaii USA)
The French moved south through the center of the continent
The Spanish moved through what is now the southwestern US, Mexico and Central America
The British moved north, into Canada, South (towards Florida), and West (as Americans)
The Chinese started to immigrate in earnest in the 1850s and first settled in California
People from all over the world have immigrated to Canada and the US from the beginning
The current population of the continent is 579 million

Canada

French and English are the official languages, but 200 languages are also spoken

The 2011 census reported 33.5 million people live in Canada

58% of the population reports that English is their mother tongue
22% list French as their mother tongue
20.6% of the population reports another mother tongue, but speak French or English, too
213,500 people reported having one of 60 Aboriginal languages as a mother tongue
2/3 of those respondents listed Three Aboriginal languages - the Cree languages, Inuktitut and Ojibway as their mother tongue

Notable Canadian film/animation/game companies

ToonBoom