There are 2 surgical approaches in hernia repair surgery: the open and the laparoscopic one. An approach is called open, when the surgeon makes a single incision near the location of the hernia, dissects the surrounding tissues and repairs the hernia under direct vision.
In general, we call the largest areas of land on earth the continents of the earth.
The United States is the third largest country in the world based on land area. There are different estimates showing the total land area of the country, but all of them show the country as being over 3.5 million square miles (9 million sq km).