I am continuing down a geographic rabbit hole.
We’re all mostly stuck at home, so I thought I would go traveling with my blog. Each day this week, I’m going to explore a different continent. There are now eight continents, but I’m going to cover the traditional seven. Perhaps later, I’ll explain why we added another one.
Today we are traveling to South America. When I took a Spanish class a few years ago (or twenty), I really wanted to visit Argentina. Now I just want to see penguins, which I can do in Chile. I’m getting my information from kids-world-travel-guide.com. I know almost nothing about our adjacent continent, so I enjoyed making this list. Let’s explore!
South America Facts:
- South American is the fourth largest continent in area and the fifth largest in population with 385 million people
- There are twelve countries in South America, and four of them are entirely north of the equator
- Brazil is the largest country and covers more than half of the continent’s area. It is only slightly smaller than the United States
- The smallest country is Suriname, located in the northeast corner of the continent. It has a population of 575,000
- The largest city is Sao Paolo in Brazil. It has a population of more than 21 million people and is one of the ten biggest cities in the world
- Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of Argentina and Chile is the biggest island
- The highest spot is Aconcagua in Argentina. This mountain is 22,837 feet tall and located int he Andes mountain range, which is the longest mountain range in the world
- The lowest spot is the salt lake Laguna del Carbón in Argentina. it is 344 feet below sea level and is also the lowest spot in the Western Hemisphere
- The biggest lake is Lake Titicaca that is both in Bolivia and Peru. (I have to include this cute song from Animaniacs. You’ll never forget Lake Titicaca after hearing it)
- The driest place both in South America and on Earth is the Atacama desert in Chile. Overall, it gets about a half an inch of rain a year, but some recording stations have never recorded any
- Paraguay and Bolivia are both landlocked in the interior of the continent.
- While Machu Picchu is the most recognizable landmark in South America, Buenos Aires is the most popular place to visit, possibly because it is a lot easier to reach