Reminders! HW #1 due Tuesday Maps: DUE WED

Latin America

Warm-up Make as many examples of landforms as you can!

rainforest

desert

What is Latin America? Reaches from the Rio Grande to Cape Horn. Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean islands and South America

Climate and Ecosystems More than 1/2 the continent lies between the tropics - therefore the sun is directly overhead for much of the year. This makes it HOT almost everywhere except in the mountains Mountains create their own climates-elevation and distance from the equator.

Landforms Andes Mountains – 4,400 miles long with average height of 13,000 ft. Aconcagua – highest peak 22,841 ft. Amazon River – largest river in the world by volume 16% of all river water Creates 1/5 of total fresh water empting into oceans Amazon rainforest – 1/3 of all species in the world live here

Population The first people probably came from Asia, crossing the Bering Strait thousands of years ago.

Three Important Early Civilizations The Mayas - Yucatan Peninsula & Guatemalan lowlands Aztecs in central Mexico Incas in the Andes Mountains (present day Peru)

Recent Influences For more than 300 years most countries of L.A. were colonies of Spain and Portugal (French, English, Dutch,) The term Latin refers to the Spanish and Portuguese languages It also refers to the cultural heritage that Spain and Portugal established in America

Latin America is carved up Portugal took over Brazil The Spanish conquered Central America and the western coast of South America The French, England and the Netherlands claimed islands in the Caribbean.

Latin and then some The cultural heritage of Africa is also a part of Latin culture.

Country Population White Mestizo Mulatto Amerindian Black White and Mestizo Mixed Other Argentina 40,301,927 97% 3% Aruba 100,018 80% 20% Bolivia 9,119,152 15% 30% 55% Brazil 190,010,647 53.7% 38.5% 6.2% 1.6% Chile 16,284,741 95% 2% Colombia 44,379,598 58% 14% 1% 4% Costa Rica 4,133,884 94% Cuba 11,394,043 37% 51% 11% Dominican Republic 9,365,818 16% 73% Ecuador 13,755,680 65% 25% 7% El Salvador 6,948,073 9% 90% Guatemala 12,728,111 40.5% 59.4% 0.1% Haiti 8,706,497 5% Honduras 7,483,763 Mexico 108,700,891 60% Nicaragua 5,675,356 17% 69% Panama 3,242,173 10% 70% 6% Paraguay 6,669,086 Peru 28,674,757 45% Puerto Rico 3,944,259 80.5% 0.4% 8% 4.1% U.S. Virgin Islands 108,448 13.1% 76.2% 3.5% 7.2% Uruguay 3,460,607 88% Venezuela 26,023,528 41% 49% Total 561,211,057 33.9% 27% 1 5.2% 10.9% 4.9% 4.8% 1.7%

Land and People More than 23 nations with many diverse landforms, environments and peoples. Some land rich in resources - others have very few. Therefore - some places are densely populated and others are empty of human life.