Physical Features of Latin America

Latin America: Physical

Geographers divide Latin America into three subregions.

1. Middle America

2. The Caribbean

3. South America

Middle America

The area of land stretching southeast from the US border to the continent of South America is referred to as Middle America. This region includes the following countries:1. Mexico2. Belize3. Guatemala4. Honduras5. El Salvador6. Nicaragua7. Costa Rica8. Panama

Middle America: Physical Facts

Middle America…… is an isthmus (narrow piece of land that links two larger land masses)… is mountainous!… has active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes… is dry and arid in the north.… mostly dense rainforest in the rest of the region.

Natural Life of Middle America

The CaribbeanIslands of the Caribbean Sea (AKA the West Indies) can be divided into 3 groups.1. The Greater Antilles2. The Lesser Antilles3. The Bahamas

The Greater Antilles include the largest islands – Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Jamaica.

The Lesser Antilles and Bahamas are archipelagos, or groups of islands.

The islands vary from mountainous to low lying. Some have fertile soil!

South America

South America Highlights

Atacama Desert is the driest place on Earth. (1mm rain/year)

The Andes Mountains is the longest range in the world stretching over 4,400 miles

The Atacama Desert is created by a rain shadow

The towering Andes

Angel Falls, in Venezuela, is world’s tallest waterfall at 3,212 feet!

The Amazon is the largest river by water volume, with a greater water flow than the next top ten rivers combined.

Most of the water of Angel Falls turns to mist before it reaches the bottom.

The mouth of the Amazon - AKA Amazon estuary

Angels Falls and the Amazon

The Amazon Rainforest

The world’s largest tropical rainforest. (Almost 3 million sq miles.)

9 feet of rain/ year 1/3 of all living

things are found here.

20% of the Earth oxygen is produced here giving it the nickname, “Lungs of our Planet”

The Uncontacted Tribes

The Amazon may hold the most remote populations of the world. In fact, some of these people have never seen anyone or anything from the modern world.

The Uncontacted Tribes of the Amazon

Deforestation The rainforest is

being destroyed at a devastating rate to make land for farms and population.

1/5 of Brazil’s forested has been destroyed, an area about the size of Greece!

The rainforest absorbs CO2, a gas that is suspected to increase global warming, without the rainforest the Earth’s temperature could increase significantly.

Click on picture to link of deforestation website.

MORE RAINFOREST FACTS

Other Important Waters

Lake Maracaibo, in Venezuela, is Latin America’s largest lake.It contains some of Venezuela’s oil fields.

The world’s highest lake is Lake Titicaca at 12,500 feet above sea level. Located in between Peru and Bolivia, it is an important transportation link to the population.

Llanos and Pampas

Tropical grasslands known as the Llanos support some agriculture in Northern South America.

The Pampas plain south of the rain forests are much like our Great Plains. The land is used for agriculture and ranching.

Cowboys of Latin America are known as

gauchos.

Economy Tied to Physical Features

There is a large gap between the poor and the wealthy = economic disparity

South American countries depend heavily on agricultural products such as coffee,nuts, sugarcane, fruits, vegetables and more recently beef. Tourism is another key industry.

Unfortunately, an alarming amount of illicit drugs are produced in and exported from some of these countries.

Some of the most beautiful beaches are found in South

AmericaA worker tosses

coffee beansU.S. forces discover a shipment of

illegal drugs from Colombia