Marcelo E. Magallon wrote:
AFAIUI, european schools tend to agree with the later form. From a purely geographical point of view, there's no reason to divide the continent in north and south. That's a political division. From a geomorphological point of view there are _three_ regions: north, central and south (and their borders don't match country borders).
From a geomorpholocical POV, you have _loads_ of regions: mountain ranges of different description, plaines, ... [0]
From a physical geography / geology POV, the defining entities are tectonic plates. According to those, most citizens of the USA, Canada etc. would be North Americans, as well as the folks in Mexico, Greenland, the western bit of Iceland, the eastern end of Siberia. Some citizens of the USA on the other hand would be "Pacificans", namely those living to the west of the St. Andreas Fault. Most people in Guatemala, the people in Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and most people from the islands to the east (not Cubans though, who are North Americans) are "Carribians". Everyone south of there is South American, apart from the people on the very tip of Patagonia, who are in fact Scots (Scotia Plate).
So, lets turn our view to the other side of the Atlantic. We can lump together most of the people as either Eurasian or African. But then again, Indians should be called Australians, since they are sitting on the north-western end of the Australian plate. Arabians and Phillipinos can claim their own plate, as can some other islands in the Pacific ocean.
You could go into lot more detail if you consider microplates and such, or ancient, now inactive boundaries (e.g., splitting up Eurasia at the Ural again).
To sum it up, physical geography is not the best indicator for national boundaries, names etc. National boundaries are political entities and agreed (or disagreed) upon by humans, not physical features. That said, I'd let the people living in any given place decide on what they want to be called. On the other hand, names are used to specify what or whom I mean when comunicating with other people, so a general understanding is quite important as well. That's why I wouldn't insist being called "Deutscher", but am quite happy with being called German, Allemand, Kraut, etc.
Cheers, Til [0] Main Entry: geo·mor·phol·o·gy Pronunciation: -mor-'fä-l&-jE Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural -gies Etymology: International Scientific Vocabulary1 : a science that deals with the relief features of the earth or of another celestial body (as the moon) and seeks a genetic interpretation of them
2 : the features dealt with in geomorphology (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=geomorphology)