South America

South America is one of two continents located entirely within the Western Hemisphere, the other being North America. Most of South America lies south of the equator in the Southern Hemisphere. The continent’s triangular land mass covers nearly 6.9 million square miles, making South America the fourth-largest continent by geographic territory. According to www.worldpopulationstatistics.com, South America is home to approximately 386 million people, making it the fifth-most populous continent. In nine countries in South America, Spanish is the primary language: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Brazil, the largest and most populous nation on the continent, is the largest Portuguese-speaking country in the world, while Suriname and Guyana are officially Dutch- and English-speaking societies, respectively. South America is surrounded by the Caribbean Sea to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the northeast and east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

Western European colonialism profoundly affected South America from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, particularly as the Spanish and Portuguese empires established overseas colonies on the continent, interacting with (and at times subjugating) the continent’s indigenous peoples, who had been living in South America for thousands of years. The best-known indigenous cultural group were the Incas of the Andean mountain region along South America’s western coast, who had established an extensive empire that, at its height in the sixteenth century, ranged from present-day Colombia to Chile and featured a vast network of stone roads.

Geography and Climate

A variety of geographic terrains can be found across the continent, including deserts, islands, mountain ranges, lowlands, and tropical rain forests. Notable islands of South America include Tierra del Fuego on the southern tip of Argentina and the Galapagos Islands, located off the coast of Ecuador. The world’s highest-altitude waterfall, Angel Falls, is located in eastern Venezuela. The world’s longest mountain range, the Andes, extends more than 5,000 miles along South America’s western coast. The high altitude—many of the Andes are more than 15,000 feet above sea level—often catches visitors to South America off guard. Visitors can experience breathing difficulty as a result of the thinner air and subsequent lower oxygen volume.

The 4,000-mile-long Amazon River cuts through seven of the continent’s nations and is the second-longest river in the world. The river basin is also site of the Amazon valley rainforest, a natural ecological treasure that accounts for approximately 25 percent of the total plant and animal biological diversity in the world. Two well-known species native to the Amazon River Valley include the anaconda, a large snake that kills its prey by wrapping around the prey’s body and crushing it through constriction, and the piranha, a predatory fish with razor-sharp teeth. The Amazon River carries more water than any other river on the planet.

South America features tremendous variation in terms of climate. While much of the continent features a rainy and humid tropical climate, temperatures in the Andean highlands can get quite cold. Chile’s Atacama Desert is the driest place in South America and one of the driest regions of the entire world. Certain areas of the desert have not had any measurable rainfall since meteorological records have been kept.

Economy

Since the sixteenth century, South America has played a key role in international trade and economics. Spanish and Portuguese explorers coveted the gold and silver found within the continent’s mines, and during the colonial era the tobacco, coffee, and sugar cane crops cultivated on South American plantations emerged as high-demand products throughout Europe and the “old world.” Brazil remains the world’s greatest producer of coffee, so much so that a drought in the nation in the spring of 2014 caused the price of coffee beans to increase by 20 percent out of fears that the lack of rainfall would result in a shortage of coffee beans. Brazil is also the world’s leading producer and exporter of sugar.

Although economists and political scientists traditionally would have classified the nations of South America as underdeveloped or developing countries, South America today is experiencing tremendous economic growth as a source of several rapidly emerging markets, a phenomenon that has attracted international attention and investment. This is particularly true for Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Chile, and Argentina; some of these nations experienced economic growth rates of 8 percent or more per year between 2004 and 2014. Brazil suffered slow rates of economic growth in late 2013 and early 2014, but in general the growth trends are likely to continue.

Economic trade and political relations between the United States and Colombia and Venezuela have been impeded due to the drug trade and political disagreements. Colombia had emerged as the world’s leading exporter of cocaine in the 1980s, and this illegal narcotics trade came to be dominated by a few high-profile cartels, which prompted violence and anti-narcotics operations carried out by both the Colombian and American governments. The election of Hugo Chávez as president in 1999 strained US relations with Venezuela as Chávez, an avowed socialist, established himself as one of the world’s leading critics of US foreign policy and expressed political support for Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Demographics

As a result of its long colonial history, the population of South America consists largely of a mixture of persons of European, African, and indigenous/Amerindian ancestry. Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors were the first Europeans to step foot on the continent in the early 1500s, where they encountered various indigenous cultural groups. The indigenous heritage of South America remains powerful to this day, particularly in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil’s Amazon rain forest. Prominent indigenous groups include the Aymara, Quechua, and Yanamamo, each of whose cultures, customs, and languages have been studied extensively by anthropologists. Many South Americans, regardless of nationality, are of at least partial indigenous ancestry.

The plantation-based and mining economies first established by the Spanish and Portuguese in the sixteenth century led to the importation of African slaves, and the African heritage on South America remains prominent today, particularly in the northern coastal regions of the continent. More than four million slaves were taken to Brazil alone, and today Brazil has the largest African-descent population of any nation in the world outside of Africa. African cultural influences on Brazilian society can be seen in samba music, the candomblé religious tradition, and the martial arts dance style capoeira.

Following the abolition of slavery in South America, large numbers of European immigrants from Italy, Germany, and Ireland settled there, most notably in Brazil and Argentina. More recently, a significant number of Japanese immigrants have established communities in Peru and Brazil. Alberto Fujimori, a Japanese Peruvian, was elected president of Peru in 1990.

Bibliography

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“Facts About South America.” Maps of the World, n.d. Web. 12 May 2014.

Neate, Rupert. “Drought in Brazil Drives the Price of Coffee Beans to a Record High.” The Guardian, April 10, 2014. Web. 12 May 2014.

Rosenberg, Matt. “Amazon River: The Eight Most Important Things to Know About the Amazon River.” about.com, January 7, 2009. Web. 12 May 2014.

“South America Map.” worldatlas.com, n.d. Web. 12 May 2014.

“South America: Physical Geography.” education.nationalgeographic.com, n.d. Web. 12 May 2014.

Trevisani, Paulo. “Brazil’s Economy Seen in Major Downturn.” Wall Street Journal, February 14, 2014. Web. 12 May 2014.

Vesilind, Priit J. “The Driest Place on Earth.” nationalgeographic.com, n.d. Web. 12 May 2014.