First American pope elected and will be known as Pope Leo XIV

Many Italian newspapers (example: IlPost) and, I suspect, many non-US media, report this as “the second American Pope, the first from the USA.”

Which, I think, is fair, as South and Latin are also America. And so is Canada. And so was Francis.

But I usually find it a hard concept to convey to my fellow local USsians.

>to my fellow local USsians.

I think you illustrated why the concept exists. USA actually has "America" in its name, unlike others - hence 'Americans' and not 'USsians'.

Well, in that case could we call them Statians or Unitians?

Or perhaps Usonians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usonia

There are languages in which the equivalent of "US American" isn't uncommon.

While Americans can mean "from the US", the term "statunitensi" is how people from the US are commonly called in Italy. And in other countries. The two things are not mutually exclusive, and calling Americans for people from the US is just a figure of speech called synecdoche.

This is a straightforward consequence of how continents are defined by various cultures.

In Anglo cultures, there are seven continents, with a distinct North and South America, and Europe and Asia.

In Romance cultures, there are six continents, with a single America, and a distinct Europe and Asia.

In some eastern European cultures, there are six continents, with a distinct North and South America, and a single Eurasia.

Who’s right? Who’s wrong? It’s kind of meaningless; it’s not like these definitions are based on some semi‐objective characteristic like counting tectonic plates. In the Anglosphere, nobody is actually confused about whether “America” refers to the country or the continents. Canadians don’t appreciate being called Americans, and (in my experience) Mexicans don’t desire it either. If one wants to refer to North and South America together, there’s a perfectly normal way to do so: “the Americas.”

USian, aside from its lack of euphony and its general connotation of being used by know‐it‐all scolds, is particularly silly since the existence of two countries named “United States”—two North American countries named “United States”—means it’s just as ambiguous a country name as “America” is claimed to be.

Even though I consider estadounidense silly (why aren’t people of Estados Unidos Mexicanos considered estadounidense, exactly?), I use it when speaking Spanish, because that’s the way people say “American” in Spanish. I don’t explain to Spanish‐speaking people how ignorant they are for using such a silly, ambiguous word. One wishes the same courtesy were offered in the other direction!

that is not completely correct, see:

The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (Spanish: Provincias Unidas del Río de la Plata), earlier known as the United Provinces of South America (Spanish: Provincias Unidas de Sudamérica), was a name adopted in 1816 by the Congress of Tucumán for the region of South America that declared independence in 1816, with the Sovereign Congress taking place in 1813, during the Argentine War of Independence (1810–1818) that began with the May Revolution in 1810. It originally comprised rebellious territories of the former Spanish Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata dependencies and had Buenos Aires as its capital.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Provinces_of_the_R%C3%A...

But then it clashes with the naming of other people that live in America. We south americans also call ourselves Americans because we live in América – taught as a single continent with two subcontinents. We call people from the US Estadounidenses because “Americans” wouldn’t make any sense for us.

Muricans.