I think that might be popular and common in the US, but outside the US and in the rest of the world, particularly in Ibero-America, "America" is the entire of South, Central and North America together. But again, what you say seem to be true inside the US, so understandable that many understand it as such.

I don't think anyone (outside the US at least) use "The Americas" in daily language, while "America" certainly is.

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rjdj377dhabsn 2 days ago | parent [-]

Here in Asia, most people with whom I talk are more likely to call the USA "America" rather than the "United States".

Probably because of its closer association with the adjective "American".

If someone with limited English asks where I'm from, they're more likely to understand if I say "America" than "United States". And no one has ever asked "oh but which country in America?".

	▲	embedding-shape 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> If someone with limited English asks where I'm from, they're more likely to understand if I say "America" than "United States". And no one has ever asked "oh but which country in America?". That's interesting! In my experience, meeting people from the US outside of the US mostly, when you ask where they are from, they tend to always say the city or the state, but never actually specify either "United States" or "America". If you don't happen to know that that state/city is in the US, and they never specified the country, you're usually safe to assume they're from the US :)