Southern Cone

The Southern Cone is the southernmost region of South America and includes the nations of Chile to the west and Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay to the east. These nations have some similarities in terms of population makeup, physical geography, resources, and economic development. They have also cooperated with one another to a degree over the years, although Argentina and Chile have also been rivals for regional influence. Sometimes, Brazil is included in the Southern Cone, but in terms of geography and culture, it differs in many ways from these other four nations.

The Southern Cone is bordered on the north by Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil; on the west by the Pacific Ocean; on the east by the Atlantic Ocean; and on the south by the Southern Ocean. It is shaped like an inverted triangle, tapering from about 1,400 miles across at its widest point (in the north) to about 420 miles (at the southern end). The region has an area of nearly 1.6 million square miles, with Argentina making up nearly a third of that total. Uruguay is the smallest nation of the region in terms of area. The population of the Southern Cone nations totaled about 71 million people in 2015. Argentina, with 42.4 million people, made up most of this regional total. It was followed by Chile (18 million), Paraguay (7 million), and Uruguay (3.6 million).

Argentina and Chile contributed major leaders to the anticolonial independence movement that swept through South America in the early nineteenth century. This wave of rebellion led to the end of Spanish colonial rule and the formation of new nations. Argentina became one of the wealthiest nations in the world in the nineteenth century based on its cattle industry, but government corruption and economic changes eroded this nation’s position. Uruguay has served as a model of democratic stability for the rest of Latin America for many decades. Authoritarian rule was long a problem in Chile, Argentina, and Paraguay, but widespread popular disgust with human rights violations and economic problems resulted in the restoration of democracy in the late twentieth century. Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay have joined with Brazil to form Mercosur (short for El Mercado Común del Sur, or the "Common Market of the South"). This economic partnership forms the fourth largest free trade zone in the world, and it makes these nations a significant force in the world economy.

The region has made significant contributions to world culture. Archaeologists comb through various sites to learn more about the spread of humans throughout the Americas and also about the religious rituals of the Inca people. The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges and the Chilean writer Isabel Allende have been celebrated for their stories and novels. Chilean poets Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda have both won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Argentina contributed the intricate, sensual dance called the tango to the world of music, spicy chimichurrí sauce to world cuisine, and the iconic figure of the gaucho—the cowhand from the Pampas—to world legend. Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires, with more than fifteen million people, is a metropolis that is widely regarded as one of the world’s most beautiful cities, with wide avenues and stately buildings.

Historical Perspective

Except for those areas of Chile that were part of the Inca Empire, the indigenous people of the Southern Cone generally did not live in large settled communities prior to the coming of Europeans. The region quickly became part of the Spanish colonial empire. In the eighteenth century, José de San Martín led a successful revolt against Spanish rule along the Río de la Plata and then led an impressive campaign over the Andes Mountains. There, he joined with Chilean liberator Bernardo O’Higgins to oust the Spanish from that area. San Martín helped oust the Spanish from Peru, and this victory over the colonial master eventually led to the liberation of Spanish South America.

In the late nineteenth century, Argentina developed its cattle industry and received investments from Europe to build a railroad infrastructure to move meat and hides. In the second half of the twentieth century, with the exception of the situation in Uruguay, authoritarian rule was prominent throughout the region, and the governments enforced their control by treating dissidents harshly. Family members mourned the desaparecidos—leftist party members or critics of the government who were taken by the police and held in prison or killed. The military rulers of Argentina overstepped when they began a war with the United Kingdom by trying to seize the Falkland Islands, which Argentina had long claimed. These islands are located off the coast of South America in the Atlantic Ocean. The British armed forces delivered a quick and thorough victory, which resulted in the Argentine generals’ disgrace. Democracy was restored there and in both Chile and Paraguay about the same time. The new governments exposed the atrocities of the autocrats, and the region has had relatively stable democratic rule ever since.

Geography and Climate

The soaring peaks of the Andes Mountains dominate most of Chile and the western edge of Argentina. These mountains extend down to the mountainous island of Tierra del Fuego, which lies off the southern tip of the continent. Chile’s Pacific coast includes narrow lowland plains in some areas. To the north lies the Atacama Desert, which is rich in copper and nitrates. In Southern Chile, the mountains soar above the sea, and deep fjords cut into the coast. Chile, on the eastern edge of the Pacific Ring of Fire, is subject to earthquakes and has some volcanoes.

Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay are dominated by a few features. The area from around Bahía Blanca, Argentina, to the south is covered by a large plateau called Patagonia. North of it is the Pampas, the lowland plain that is home to Argentina’s cattle industry. North and east of that plain is the wide estuary of the Río de la Plata; here are located Buenos Aires and Montevideo. North and west of the Pampas is the Gran Chaco, another lowland, grassy region. Highlands in eastern Paraguay along the Paraná River are the site of two major hydroelectric projects.

Location and landforms shape the climate. The northern part of the area east of the Andes has a humid temperate climate, with more rainfall along the coast and less to the west. Patagonia has a semiarid or arid climate and relatively cold temperatures, as does Chile’s Atacama Desert. Central Chile has a maritime climate similar to that of the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The high mountains of southern Chile have a very cold climate.

Economy

The economies of Argentina and Chile are fairly well developed, and Argentina ranks among the twenty-five most productive economies in the world. Manufacturing in Argentina is strong, with oil refining, steel production, and auto manufacturing all important industries. The major industries, however, tend to be related to agricultural products produced in the interior. Plants processing beef, hides and leather, grains and soybeans, sugar, and wine account for much of the nation’s exports. Argentina’s economy has been plagued for more than a century by boom-and-bust cycles resulting from world price fluctuations for its products. Although nearly a third of the people live in poverty, the nation remains an economic success story for South America.

Chile has also made itself an important economy in the region, but it, too, suffers from price fluctuations in its major exports, nitrates and copper. Chile possesses the world’s largest reserves of both minerals. This nation has used its location in the Southern Hemisphere to carve out a niche for itself as a supplier of fruits and vegetables to North America during the northern winters. The nation’s free trade agreement with the United States has also benefitted Chile. While Chile’s economy is not as large as Argentina’s, its poverty rate is half that of its eastern neighbor.

Uruguay and Paraguay are much smaller than the other two nations of the region and lack the resources they have. Uruguay’s major exports are agricultural products—soybeans, grains, beef and dairy products, and fish—and its major industries focus on processing those products. Paraguay lags far behind the other nations of the region in output. Its major products, too, are agricultural, and its major industries include food processing, the production of cement or steel, and hydroelectric power. The nation is a major exporter of electricity.

Demographics

The Southern Cone countries and the nations of the Andean north developed in distinct ways. The southern nations generally have heavily Europeanized populations with little blending of Native American peoples. People of European descent make up nearly 90 percent of the populations of Chile and Uruguay and nearly 97 percent of Argentina’s people. Most of Chile’s indigenous people live in the rugged, mountainous south. Spanish is by far the dominant language, and Roman Catholicism is the chief religion. The exception to these trends is Paraguay, where 95 percent of the people are mestizos—meaning of mixed European and Native American heritage. Paraguay can be also be distinguished from the other three countries because it is home to Guaraní, a Native American tongue that joins Spanish as an official language.

The region is also heavily urbanized, with 90 percent or more of the people living in the cities of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Paraguay is, again, the exception. City layouts show Spanish colonial influence, with large central plazas around which major public buildings stand.

Populations are relatively young, with 21 (Chile and Uruguay) to 33 percent (Paraguay) of the population under fifteen years of age, higher than the figures for developed countries. Populations in Argentina and Paraguay, in particular, are expected to grow rapidly to 2050. Literacy rates—the share of the population fifteen and older that can read and write—are high. The average length of schooling in Paraguay is also slightly lower, at twelve years compared to fifteen or more in the other three nations, which means a high percentage of people in those nations go to university.

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