Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Jeremy Horner/CORBIS
Landforms
Geographers divide the region of Latin America into three subregions: Middle America, the Caribbean, and South America.
Middle America is made up of Mexico and Central America and lies where four tectonic plates meet. Central America is an isthmus, or a narrow piece of land that links North America and South America.
Landforms (cont.)
The islands of the Caribbean Sea, also known as the West Indies, are divided into three groups: the Greater Antilles, the Lesser Antilles, and the Bahamas.
The Greater Antilles include the largest islandsCuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica.
Landforms (cont.)
The Amazon Basin is a low-lying area east of the Andes that contains the Amazon River and covers 2.7 million square miles (7.0 million sq. km). Tropical grasslands known as the Llanos stretch through eastern Colombia and Venezuela. Another well-known plain, the Pampas, covers much of Argentina and Uruguay and provides grazing land for beef cattle and fertile soil for growing grains.
Waterways
The Amazon, Latin Americas longest river, starts in the Andes and flows east about 4,000 miles (6,437 km) to the Atlantic Ocean.
Three other riversthe Paran, Paraguay, and Uruguayform Latin Americas second-largest river system. These rivers flow into the Rio de la Plata a broad estuary, or area where river currents and ocean tides meetwhich meets the Atlantic Ocean.
Waterways (cont.)
The Panama Canal, a human-made waterway, stretches across the narrow Isthmus of Panama. Ships use the canal to shorten travel time between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Jeremy Horner/CORBIS
This zone of moist, pleasant climates is called the tierra templada, or temperate land. The mild temperaturesbetween 65F and 75F (18C and 24C)make it the most densely populated of the climate zones.
Conditions here can be harsh. The climate is cold, and the temperature can be as low as 20F (7C).
Relatively few people live at these heights.