South America
Fourth largest of the continents, nearly twice as large as Europe (13%
of the world's land surface), extending south from Central America
Area:
17,864,000 sq km/6,900,000 sq mi
Largest Cities:
(population over 3.5 million) Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro,
Bogotá, Santiago, Lima, Caracas
Features:
Lake Titicaca (the world's highest navigable lake); La Paz (highest
capital city in the world); Atacama Desert; Inca ruins at Machu Picchu;
rivers include the Amazon (world's largest and second longest), Paraná,
Madeira, São Francisco, Purús, Paraguay, Orinoco, Araguaia, Negro, Uruguay
Physical:
Occupying the southern part of the landmass of the western hemisphere,
the South American continent stretches from Point Gallinas on the Caribbean
coast of Colombia to Cape Horn at the southern tip of Horn Island, which
lies adjacent to Tierra del Fuego; the most southerly point on the mainland
is Cape Froward on the Brunswick peninsula, S Chile; at its maximum
width (5,120 km/3,200 mi) the continent stretches from Point Pariñ as,
Peru, in the extreme west to Point Coqueiros, just north of Recife,
Brazil, in the east; five-sixths of the continent lies in the southern
hemisphere and two-thirds within the tropics.
South America is a compact land mass and has a fairly regular coastline,
except in S Chile, where sunken valleys have resulted from subsidence
that has left mountain peaks as islands. The continent can be divided
into the following physical regions:
(1) the Andes mountain system, which consists of extensive chains
of parallel folded mountains, formed during the subsidence of the
bed of the Pacific Ocean; they are new mountains as distinct from
the ancient rocks, and contain limestones which were deposited under
deep water later than the older sandstones of the eastern highlands;
they show signs of crustal movement due to earthquake and volcanic
action; the Andes begin as three separate ranges in the north and
stretch the whole length of the west coast, approximately 7,200 km/4,500
mi; the highest peak is Cerro Aconcagua, 6,960 m/22,834 ft; the width
of the Andes ranges from 40 km/25 mi in Chile to 640 km/400 mi in
Bolivia; a narrow coastal belt lies between the Andes and the Pacific
Ocean;
(2) the uplifted remains of the old continental mass, with interior
plains at an elevation of 610-1,520 m /2,000-5,000 ft, which are found
in the east and northeast, in the Brazilian Highlands (half the area
of Brazil) and Guiana Highlands;
(3) the plain of the Orinoco River, which is an alluvial tropical
lowland lying between the Venezuelan Andes and the Guiana Highlands;
(4) the tropical Amazon Plain, which stretches over 3,200 km /2,000
mi from the eastern foothills of the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean,
separating the Brazilian and Guiana highlands; once an inland sea,
the Amazon basin was filled with sediment from highland rivers and
then uplifted; the Amazon's chief tributaries are the Tocantins, Xingu,
Tapajós, Madeira, Purús, Ucayali, Negro, Yapura, Napo, and Morona;
it has a huge estuary 80-320 km/50- 200 mi wide;
(5) the Pampa-Chaco plain of Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia, which
occupies a former bay of the Atlantic Ocean that has been filled with
sediment brought down from the surrounding highlands; and
(6) the Patagonian Plateau in the south, which consists of a series
of terraces that rise from the Atlantic Ocean to the foothills of
the Andes; glaciation, wind, and rain have dissected these terraces
and created rugged land forms; the plateau is traversed by rivers
including the Colorado, the Negro, and the Chubut; lakes are formed
in some of the valleys by dams of residual moraines left from the
ice age
Climate:
The distribution of rainfall in South America is affected by three
factors:
(1) the areas of high pressure over the South Atlantic and the South
Pacific between latitudes 20º and 40 º;
(2) the tropical continental region of low pressure in the Upper
Amazon basin; and
(3) the direction of the ocean currents which wash both east and
west coasts, together with a cold current that clings to the coast
along most of the west coast.
The continent's summer rainfall is of a monsoonal type, but differs
from that of Asia in that there is no movement outwards of high-pressure
air owing to the continent being as a whole warmer than the surrounding
seas during all seasons
Industries:
South America produces 44% of the world's coffee (Brazil, Colombia),
22% of its cocoa (Brazil), 35% of its citrus fruit, meat (Argentina,
Brazil), soya beans (Argentina, Brazil), cotton (Brazil), and linseed
(Argentina); Argentina is the world's second-largest producer of sunflower
seed; Brazil is the world's largest producer of bananas, its second-largest
producer of tin, and its third-largest producer of manganese, tobacco,
and mangoes; Peru is the world's second-largest producer of silver;
Chile is the world's largest producer of copper
Population:
(1988) 285 million, rising to 550 million (est) by the year 2000; annual
growth rate from 1980 to 1985, 2.3%
Language:
Spanish, Portuguese (chief language in Brazil), Dutch (Suriname), French
(French Guiana), Native American languages; Hindi, Javanese, and Chinese
spoken by descendants of Asian immigrants to Suriname and Guyana; a
variety of Creole dialects spoken by those of African descent
Religion:
90-95% Roman Catholic; local animist beliefs among Amerindians; Hindu
and Muslim religions predominate among the descendants of Asian
immigrants in Suriname and Guyana
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