After the discovery of America in 1492, Spain explored and conquered large tracts of territory in America, from the present southwestern United States, Mexico and the Caribbean, to Central America, most of South America and the northwest coast of North America (now Alaska and British Columbia). All these territories were integrated into the Crown of Castile and, later, into the Spanish Crown. Initially they were organized in two viceroyalties, that of New Spain and that of Peru. With the discovery and settlement in several archipelagos of the Pacific at the end of the 16th century, the Spanish East Indies, formed by the Philippines, the Marianas (which included Guam) and the Carolinas (which included the Palau), were incorporated into the empire. of New Spain. Later, the Viceroyalty of Peru was divided into two: that of New Granada and that of Peru, and finally that of the Río de la Plata.
Portuguese colonization of America, was the whole territory of the Americas belonging to the Kingdom of Portugal. At present, Portuguese America consists mostly of the present Federal Republic of Brazil, also in the present Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador - both the island of Newfoundland and the Labrador region were under Portuguese rule - and Nova Scotia, in the Central American country of Barbados, in Uruguay and the French overseas department of French Guiana.
