SOUTH AMERICA

MAJOR GEOGRAPHIC QUALITIES PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY IS DOMINATED BY THE ANDES MOUNTAINS S AND THE AMAZON BASIN. POPULATION IS CONCENTRATED ALONG THE PERIPHERY (Coastal Areas). CULTURAL PLURALISM EXISTS IN MOST COUNTRIES AND IS EXPRESSED REGIONALLY. REGIONAL ECONOMIC INTERACTION HAS BEEN MINIMAL IN THE PAST.

URBANIZATION 79%- CONTINENT-WIDE IN SOUTH AMERICA SOUTH AMERICA’S INCREASE BASED ON RATE OF “NATURAL INCREASE” AND INTERNAL MIGRATION MAJOR CITIES INCLUDE: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Sao Paolo, Brazil Buenos Aires, Argentina Santiago, Chile Caracas, Venezuela

Agriculture In South America Fruit & specialized crops (Mostly in South) Mixed Livestock/Crops (Mostly in South) Grain Farming (Mostly in South) Subsistence Crops/Livestock (throughout) Mediterranean Agriculture (Central Chile) Plantation (Tropical) Ag (Along coastal fringe) Traditional Cultivation (In Andes Mountains) Shifting Cultivation (Amazon Basin) Livestock Ranching (primarily Brazil & Argentina) Non-agriculture areas (Western coast)

Natural Resources Venezuela’s Orinoco River area contains 11 percent of the world’s gold. Brazil is also rich in gold, and Peru is known for its silver deposits. Chile is the world’s leading exporter of copper. Geographic inaccessibility, lack of capital, and social and political divisions hinder fuller development and distribution of natural resources in Latin America.

CULTURE SPHERES Plantation European-commercial Mestizo-transitional Locations, soils, & tropical climates favor plantation crops, especially sugar. European-commercial The most European part of South America Includes the Pampas - temperate grasslands Economically most advanced Mestizo-transitional Surrounds the Indigenous-subsistence region A zone of mixture- culturally & agriculturally Transition zones

CULTURE SPHERES (Continued) Indigenous- Subsistence Farming Correlates with the former Inca Empire Includes some of South America’s poorest areas Subsistence agriculture must contend with difficult environmental challenges: Mountains, deserts, rainforest. Undifferentiated Characteristics are difficult to classify. Sparsely populated (deserts and rainforest) Isolation and lack of development