We use "The Americas" to refer to the continents as a pair, and prepend a cardinal direction to refer to one of them individually.
Citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia call themselves Australians, despite there being other governments on the continent of Australia.
[1]: http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres15.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_%28continent%29
We use "The Americas" to refer to the continents as a pair, and prepend a cardinal direction to refer to one of them individually.
Citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia call themselves Australians, despite there being other governments on the continent of Australia.
[1]: http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres15.html