Travel overview of South America – by Louise
My very first time in South America was fascinating. Being the fourth largest of the world’s continents (with a total area of about 6,878,000 square miles, making up roughly one eighth of the earth’s landmass) it is the southern portion of the landmass generally referred to as the Western Hemisphere. The continent is compact and roughly triangular in shape, being broad in the north and tapering to a point—Cape Horn, Chile—in the south. South America lies between the Caribbean Sea to the northwest and north, the Atlantic Ocean to the northeast, east, and southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. In the northwest it is joined to North America by the Isthmus of Panama. Drake Passage, south of Cape Horn, separates South America from Antarctica. I had not realized that Antarctica was that close to South America. There are a few islands off the coast of Argentina and Chili which are glacial archipelagos and of course the all famous Galapagos islands off the coast of Ecuador.
Most of the population lives near the continent’s western or eastern coasts while the interior and the far south are sparsely populated. The geography of western South America is dominated by the Andes mountains; in contrast, the eastern part contains both highland regions and vast lowlands where rivers such as the Amazon, Orinoco, and Paraná flow. Most of the continent lies in the tropics.
The continent’s cultural and ethnic outlook has its origin with the interaction of indigenous peoples with European conquerors and immigrants and, more locally, with African slaves. Given a long history of colonialism, the overwhelming majority of South Americans speak Portuguese or Spanish, and societies and states reflect Western traditions.