As of 2025, Barbados was the most densely populated country in Latin America and the Caribbean, with approximately 657.16 people per square kilometer. In that same year, Argentina's population density was estimated at approximately 16.75 people per square kilometer.

Cuba is the largest island country or territory in the Caribbean, with a total area of almost 111 thousand square kilometers, followed by the Dominican Republic, with nearly 49 thousand square kilometers.

In 2023, Brazil ranked first by total population among the 24 territories presented in the ranking. Brazil's total population amounted to 211.14 million people, while Mexico and Colombia, the second and third territories, had records amounting to 129.74 million people and 52.32 million people, respectively.

As of February 2025, the Dominican Republic had the largest number of internet users in the Caribbean, with more than **** million citizens online. Even though the Bahamas ranked seventh with *** thousand users, it was the Caribbean sovereign state with the highest percentage of people online. Meanwhile, Montserrat was the territory with the smallest online population in the region, since only **** thousand of its inhabitants accessed the internet.

Haiti is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, to the east of Cuba and Jamaica and south of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island which it shares with the Dominican Republic. To its south-west lies the small Navassa Island, which is claimed by Haiti but is disputed as a United States territory under federal administration. Haiti is 27,750 km2 (10,714 sq mi) in size, the third largest country in the Caribbean by area, and has an estimated population of 11.4 million, making it the most populous country in the Caribbean. The capital is Port-au-Prince.

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As of July 2025, the Dominican Republic was the Caribbean territory with the largest Instagram audience, counting over *** million monthly active users (MAU). In second place was Puerto Rico, with approximately **** million users. When looking at Latin America as a whole, Brazil was the country with the highest number of users of the photo and video sharing social media platform.

Within- and between-country genetic distances for HIV-1 Caribbean populations.

The Caribbean and Central America are among the regions with highest HIV-1B prevalence worldwide. Despite of this high virus burden, little is known about the timing and the migration patterns of HIV-1B in these regions. Migration is one of the major processes shaping the genetic structure of virus populations. Thus, reconstruction of epidemiological network may contribute to understand HIV-1B evolution and reduce virus prevalence. We have investigated the spatio-temporal dynamics of the HIV-1B epidemic in The Caribbean and Central America using 1,610 HIV-1B partial pol sequences from 13 Caribbean and 5 Central American countries. Timing of HIV-1B introduction and virus evolutionary rates, as well as the spatial genetic structure of the HIV-1B populations and the virus migration patterns were inferred. Results revealed that in The Caribbean and Central America most of the HIV-1B variability was generated since the 80 s. At odds with previous data suggesting that Haiti was the origin of the epidemic in The Caribbean, our reconstruction indicated that the virus could have been disseminated from Puerto Rico and Antigua. These two countries connected two distinguishable migration areas corresponding to the (mainly Spanish-colonized) Easter and (mainly British-colonized) Western islands, which indicates that virus migration patterns are determined by geographical barriers and by the movement of human populations among culturally related countries. Similar factors shaped the migration of HIV-1B in Central America. The HIV-1B population was significantly structured according to the country of origin, and the genetic diversity in each country was associated with the virus prevalence in both regions, which suggests that virus populations evolve mainly through genetic drift. Thus, our work contributes to the understanding of HIV-1B evolution and dispersion pattern in the Americas, and its relationship with the geography of the area and the movements of human populations.

aAnalysis was done based on examination of the number of repeats in Motifs A and B.

The Dominican Republic was the Caribbean territory with the largest Facebook audience as of July 2025. At that moment, there were over *** million monthly active users (MAU) accessing this social network in the Dominican Republic. Meanwhile, Haiti ranked second with more than ***** million Facebook users. The Dominican Republic also had the largest number of Instagram users in the region.

This study describes the genetic diversity and population structure of 194 native maize populations from 23 countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. The germplasm, representing 131 distinct landraces, was genetically characterized as population bulks using 28 SSR markers. Three main groups of maize germplasm were identified. The first, the Mexico and Southern Andes group, highlights the Pre-Columbian and modern exchange of germplasm between North and South America. The second group, Mesoamerica lowland, supports the hypothesis that two separate human migration events could have contributed to Caribbean maize germplasm. The third, the Andean group, displayed early introduction of maize into the Andes, with little mixing since then, other than a regional interchange zone active in the past. Events and activities in the pre- and post-Columbian Americas including the development and expansion of pre-Columbian cultures and the arrival of Europeans to the Americas are discussed in relation to the history of maize migration from its point of domestication in Mesoamerica to South America and the Caribbean through sea and land routes.

Objectives: Direct comparative work in morphology and growth on widely dispersed wild primate taxa is rarely accomplished, yet critical to understanding ecogeographic variation, plastic local varia- tion in response to human impacts, and variation in patterns of growth and sexual dimorphism. We investigated population variation in morphology and growth in response to geographic variables (i.e., latitude, altitude), climatic variables (i.e., temperature and rainfall), and human impacts in the vervet monkey (Chlorocebus spp.).

Methods: We trapped over 1,600 wild vervets from across Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, and compared measurements of body mass, body length, and relative thigh, leg, and foot length in four well-represented geographic samples: Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, and St. Kitts & Nevis.

Results: We found significant variation in body mass and length consistent with Bergmann’s Rule in adult females, and in adult males when excluding the St. Kitts & Nevis population, which was more sexually dimorphic. Contrary to Rensch’s Rule, although the South African population had the largest average body size, it was the least dimorphic. There was significant, although very small, variation in all limb segments in support for Allen’s Rule. Females in high human impact areas were heavier than those with moderate exposures, while those in low human impact areas were lighter; human impacts had no effect on males.

Conclusions: Vervet monkeys appear to have adapted to local climate as predicted by Bergmann’s and, less consistently, Allen’s Rule, while also responding in predicted ways to human impacts. To better understand deviations from predicted patterns will require further comparative work in vervets.

Methods The data derive from field collections made over many years using a common protocol: Ethiopia in 1973, Kenya in 1978-79; South Africa in 2002–2008, and several African countries and the Caribbean in 2009– 2011 in collaboration with the International Vervet Research Consortium (Jasinska et al., 2013). The International Vervet Research Consortium is a multidisciplinary research group that has, in addition to morphological variation, studied variation in patterns of growth and development (Schmitt et al., 2018), genetic/genomic (Jasinska, et al., 2013; Schmitt et al., 2018; Svardal et al., 2017; Turner et al. 2016a; Warren et al. 2015) and transcriptomic (Jasinska et al., 2017) variation, SIV immune response (Ma et al., 2013, 2014; Svardal et al., 2017), hor- monal variation (Fourie et al., 2015), C4 isotopes variation in hair (Loudon et al., 2014), gut parasite and disease variation (Gaetano et al., 2014; Senghore et al., 2016), genital morphology and appearance (Cramer et al., 2013; Rodriguez et al., 2015a,b), and other biological parameters within the genus Chlorocebus.

Vervet monkeys were trapped at locations across sub-Saharan Africa, including South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Ghana, and on the Caribbean islands of St. Kitts and Nevis (Figure 1). Trapping in Africa employed individual drop traps as described by Brett, Turner, Jolly, & Cauble (1982) and Grobler and Turner (2010), while trapping in St. Kitts and Nevis was done by local trappers using large group traps (Jasinska et al., 2013). Animals were anesthetized while in the trap and then removed to a processing area. Sex was determined by visual and manual inspection, while age classes were assigned from dental eruption sequences and based on previous observations (Table 2). All animals were weighed with either an electronic or hanging scale, and measured with a tape measure and sliding calipers. Parameters and protocols describing all measurements are available through the Bones and Behavior Working Group (2015; http://www.bonesandbehavior. org/). All animals were released to their social group after sampling and recovery from anesthesia. Observations during trapping allowed us to confirm the animals’ social group and local population affiliation.

For the present study, we chose metrics representative of skeletal size (body length, thigh length, leg length, and foot length) and body mass from a total of 1,613 vervets in four geographically and genomi- cally distinct populations: Ch. aethiops in Ethiopia, Ch. p. hilgerti in Kenya, Ch. p. pygerythrus in South Africa, and Ch. sabaeus on the Carib- bean islands of St. Kitts and Nevis (Table 3). The Caribbean populations are known to be descended from West African Ch. sabaeus brought to the Caribbean several hundred years ago (Warren et al., 2015). Of the whole sample, 288 females and 460 males were dentally immature. Sexual maturity is typically not reached in vervets until near the time of canine tooth eruption, here denoting the beginning of dental age 6 (Cramer et al., 2013; Rodriguez et al., 2015a); although somatic and skeletal growth often continues beyond the emergence of the third molar, which is here denoted as adult (Bolter & Zihlman, 2003). As is common, dental age and skeletal age are presumed to be similarly cor- related across the genus, meaning that comparable dental age implies comparable skeletal developmental age across populations (Seselj, 2013).

All measurements were developed by CJJ and TRT and other measurers (CAS and JDC) were trained directly by TRT. During training, repeated measures of the same individual were conducted in tandem with TRT until concordance was reached.

The location of each trapping site is reported in decimal degrees (Table 1), and for most sites measured using hand-held GPS units. For those trapping sites lacking GPS readings, a general latitude and longi- tude for the trapping area (e.g., game reserve, town) was used. Human impact at each trapping location was assessed according to conditions during the time of trapping using a previously published index devel- oped by Pampush (2010) to study variation in vervet body size, and subsequently used by Loudon et al. (2014) and Fourie et al. (2015) (Table 1). This index includes presence/absence measures of reliable access to (1) agricultural land, (2) human food, (3) rubbish or garbage dumps, and (4) whether animals are regularly provisioned, as well as a three-level scale of human activity within the presumed home range of the group (low, moderate, or high). In the index, point values are assigned to each value, with the lowest tier of human impact each receiving a 1, scaling up by 1 for each level. Added together, these val- ues comprise a human impact group ranging from low (lowest score in each category; index 5 5), to moderate (index 5 6–8), to high (index- 5 9–11). These measures take into account only the ecological impact of humans, and do not address local ecological variables (such as native plant productivity) that might also influence body size and growth. As a proxy for these measures, we collected several climatic variables for trapping sites from the WorldClim 2 database, which has a spatial reso- lution of about 1 km2 (Fick & Hijmans, 2017). Climatic variables consid- ered for inclusion in our models were (1) annual mean temperature (in degrees Celsius), (2) temperature seasonality (measured as the standard deviation of annual mean temperature multiplied by 100), (3) the mini- mum temperature of the coldest month (in degrees Celsius), (4) the mean temperature of the coldest quarter of the year, (5) annual precipi- tation (in mm), and (6) precipitation seasonality (measured as thecoefficient of variation of monthly precipitation). Climate data were accessed via the R package raster v. 2.6-7 (Hijmans & van Etten, 2012), and assigned to trapping sites based on latitude and longitude.

In 2022, Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for around ****** million social media users, ranking as the fifth most popular region for this type of platform worldwide. Brazil and Mexico were the countries with the continent’s biggest social network audiences, registering ****** million and ***** million users each in the measured period. Additionally, Brazil is also the fifth largest market for social media worldwide.

Meta’s new contenders

The products owned by social media giant Meta (formerly known as Facebook Inc.) still reign across the social media landscape in Latin America and the Caribbean, as Facebook is still used by almost ** percent of the continent’s population. However, new competitors like Telegram and content-focused networks like TikTok are challenging Meta’s hegemony. The ByteDance-owned company TikTok has already surpassed Instagram in Mexico, Colombia, and Peru regarding the number of users, becoming the second-largest network in these countries.

Hardships on internet access

Even though Latin America increases its connectivity in traffic via mobile devices, the inequality in access to the internet throughout the continent also is also reflected in the presence of its populations on social media platforms. Almost ** percent of people living in South America have access to these networks, against ** percent of those living in Central America and only ** percent of those living in the Caribbean.

Supplementary Material 1

Based on land area, Brazil is the largest country in Latin America by far, with a total area of over 8.5 million square kilometers. Argentina follows with almost 2.8 million square kilometers. Cuba, whose surface area extends over almost 111,000 square kilometers, is the Caribbean country with the largest territory.

Brazil: a country with a lot to offer

Brazil's borders reach nearly half of the South American subcontinent, making it the fifth-largest country in the world and the third-largest country in the Western Hemisphere. Along with its landmass, Brazil also boasts the largest population and economy in the region. Although Brasília is the capital, the most significant portion of the country's population is concentrated along its coastline in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

South America: a region of extreme geographic variation

With the Andes mountain range in the West, the Amazon Rainforest in the East, the Equator in the North, and Cape Horn as the Southern-most continental tip, South America has some of the most diverse climatic and ecological terrains in the world. At its core, its biodiversity can largely be attributed to the Amazon, the world's largest tropical rainforest, and the Amazon river, the world's largest river. However, with this incredible wealth of ecology also comes great responsibility. In the past decade, roughly 80,000 square kilometers of the Brazilian Amazon were destroyed. And, as of late 2019, there were at least 1,000 threatened species in Brazil alone.

In 2025, Brazil and Mexico were expected to be the countries with the largest gross domestic product (GDP) in Latin America and the Caribbean. In that year, Brazil's GDP could reach an estimated value of 2.3 trillion U.S. dollars, whereas Mexico's amounted to almost 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars. GDP is the total value of all goods and services produced in a country in a given year. It measures the economic strength of a country and a positive change indicates economic growth.

As of July 2025, the Dominican Republic was the Caribbean territory with the largest LinkedIn audience, counting nearly *** million users. In second place was Puerto Rico, with **** million users on the social network for professionals. Meanwhile, in Mexico, most LinkedIn users were between 25 and 34 years old.

In 2019, Brazil and Mexico were the undisputable passenger traffic hubs in Latin America and the Caribbean, registering each over ** million air travelers passing through their airports. At a wide margin, Colombia ranked third that year, while the only Caribbean country in the top seven was the Dominican Republic. That same year, the Mexico City International Airport was the best internationally connected airport in Latin America.

In 2025, approximately 23 million people lived in the São Paulo metropolitan area, making it the biggest in Latin America and the Caribbean and the sixth most populated in the world. The homonymous state of São Paulo was also the most populous federal entity in the country. The second place for the region was Mexico City with 22.75 million inhabitants. Brazil's cities Brazil is home to two large metropolises, only counting the population within the city limits, São Paulo had approximately 11.45 million inhabitants, and Rio de Janeiro around 6.21 million inhabitants. It also contains a number of smaller, but well known cities such as Brasília, Salvador, Belo Horizonte and many others, which report between 2 and 3 million inhabitants each. As a result, the country's population is primarily urban, with nearly 88 percent of inhabitants living in cities. Mexico City Mexico City's metropolitan area ranks sevenths in the ranking of most populated cities in the world. Founded over the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in 1521 after the Spanish conquest as the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the city still stands as one of the most important in Latin America. Nevertheless, the preeminent economic, political, and cultural position of Mexico City has not prevented the metropolis from suffering the problems affecting the rest of the country, namely, inequality and violence. Only in 2023, the city registered a crime incidence of 52,723 reported cases for every 100,000 inhabitants and around 24 percent of the population lived under the poverty line.

Some of the most populous countries in Latin America were also the nations that register the highest number of murders. Brazil was the country with the largest number of intentional homicides in the region with 44,367 victims. Mexico came in second, with 33,287 homicide victims, followed by Colombia with over 13,000 victims.