South America

South America is the fourth largest continent in terms of area. It covers 17,806,000 sq km or about 12 per cent of the world's land area. It extends from 12° N to 55° S latitudes and 34° W to 81° W longitudes. It is almost completely surrounded by water-the Caribbean Sea on the north, the Atlantic Ocean on the northeast and east, the Pacific Ocean on the west and the Drake Passage on the south. The continent is connected to Central America by a narrow strip of land-the Isthmus of Panama.

The major physical divisions of South America are 'the Western Coastal Strip, the Western Mountains, the Central Plains and the Eastern Highlands. The Western Costal Strip is a narrow. strip of lowland along the Pacific Coast in the western part of South America. The Western Mountains, called the Andes Mountains, stretch for about 7200 kilometres from Venezuela in the north to Tierra del Fuego in the south. The Andes, which are young fold mountains, are the second highest mountain systems in the world, next only to the Himalayas. Mt Aconcagua (6,959 m) in Argentina is the tallest mountain in the entire western hemisphere. The Andes are also the world's longest mountain ranges above sea level. (The longest range is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge which rises from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.) Between the ranges of the Andes are some high plateaus. Lake Titicac~, one of the largest lakes of South America, is located in the Bolivian Plateau. The Andes also have several volcanic peaks, some active, others dormant or extinct. Cotopaxi in Ecuador is the highest active volcano in the world.

The Central Plains, covering about three-fifths of South America, lie between the Andes and the Eastern highlands. They are made up of the Llamos, rolling grasslands in the Orinico river basin of Colombia and Venezuela; the Selva, tropical rain forest of the Amazon river basin in Bolivia, Brazil and Peru; the Gran Chaco, hardwood serial forest in north-central Argentina, western Paraguay and southern Bolivia; the Pampas, vast grasslands in Argentina.

The Eastern Highlands consist of the Guyana High­lands and the Brazilian Highlands separated by the Amazon basin. Mountains of the Eastern Highlands are lower and older than the Andes.

The Amazon, the Rio de Ie Plata, the Magdalena-Cauca the Orinoco and the Sao Francisco are the major rive systems of South America. The Amazon is the world' second longest river, but has the largest drainage basin Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela is the continent's largest lake The Angel Falls in South-eastern Venezuela is the highes water fall in the world.

There is a broad zone of desert running southward: from coastal Eucador along the coasts of Peru and Chill and through southern Argentina.

South America has a long coastline-32,000 km. Then are several major island groups- Tierra del Fuego grouF (the largest); the Juan Fernandez Islands; the Falklanc Islands; and the Galapagos Islands.

The continent experiences a variety of climates-from dry desert conditions of northern Chile to the heavy raim along the south-western coast.