Geography Unit Guide 4: Latin America

Privatization

is the process of transferring an enterprise or industry from the public sector (government) to the private sector.

Indigenous

originating in and characteristic of a particular region or country; native (often followed by to)

Buenos Aires (Argentina)

the most populous and the capital city of Argentina. Its center is the Plaza de Mayo, lined with stately 19th-century buildings including Casa Rosada, the iconic, balconied presidential palace. Other major attractions include Teatro Colón, a grand 1908 opera house with nearly 2,500 seats, and the modern MALBA museum, displaying Latin American art.

Mestizos

(in Latin America) a man of mixed race, especially the offspring of a Spaniard and an American Indian

Archipelago

is a group of islands closely scattered in a body of water. Usually, this body of water is the ocean, but it can also be a lake or river. Most archipelagoes are made of oceanic islands. This means the islands were formed by volcanoes erupting from the ocean floor.

infrastructure

is the basic facilities and installations that help a government or community run, including roads, schools, phone lines, sewage treatment plants and power generation. An example of infrastructure is the basic roads and power lines for a new housing development.

Quipu

sometimes known as talking knots, were recording devices historically used in a number of cultures and particularly in the region of Andean South America. It usually consisted of colored, spun, and plied thread or strings made from cotton or camelid fiber. For the Inca, the system aided in collecting data and keeping records, ranging from monitoring tax obligations, properly collecting census records, calendrical information, and military organization. The cords contained numeric and other values encoded by knots in a base ten positional system. A quipu could have only a few or up to 2,000 cords.[ The configuration of the quipus have also been "compared to string mops." Archaeological evidence has also shown a use of finely carved wood as a supplemental, and perhaps more sturdy, base on which the color-coordinated cords would be attached. A relatively small number have survived.

Santiago (Chile)

Chile's capital and largest city, sits in a valley surrounded by the snow-capped Andes and the Chilean Coast Range. Plaza de Armas, the grand heart of the city's old colonial core, is home to 2 neoclassical landmarks: the 1808 Palacio de la Real Audiencia, housing the National History Museum, and the 18th-century Metropolitan Cathedral. La Chascona is the home-turned-museum of poet Pablo Neruda.

Pampas

an extensive generally grass-covered plain of temperate South America east of the Andes.

Primate city

is a major city that works as the financial, political, and population center of a country and is not rivaled in any of these aspects by any other city in that country. Normally, a primate city must be at least twice as populous as the second largest city in the country.

Baja Península

is a peninsula in Northwestern Mexico. Its land mass separates the Pacific Ocean from the Gulf of California. The peninsula is separated from mainland Mexico by the Gulf of California and the Colorado River.

Francisco Pizarro

was a Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that conquered the Inca Empire. He captured and killed Incan emperor Atahualpa and claimed the lands for Spain.

Cathedrals

A church building in which a Christian bishop has his official seat; cathedra is Latin for "chair." Cathedrals are usually large and imposing, and many have been important in the development of architecture. The building of a cathedral, especially in the Middle Ages, was a project in which the entire town took part.

Chicken Itza

A large pre-Columbian city built by the Maya people of the Terminal Classic period. The archaeological site is located in Tinúm Municipality, Yucatán State, Mexico. Chichen Itza was a major focal point in the Northern Maya Lowlands from the Late Classic (c. AD 600- AD 1200). The site exhibits a multitude of architectural styles, reminiscent of styles seen in central Mexico and of the Puuc and Chenes styles of the Northern Maya lowlands. Chichen Itza was one of the largest Maya cities and it was likely to have been one of the mythical great cities. The city may have had the most diverse population in the Maya world, a factor that could have contributed to the variety of architectural styles at the site.

Deforestation of the Rainforest

Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest accelerated significantly between 1991 and 2004. Though the rate of deforestation has been slowing since 2004 (with re-accelerations in 2008 and 2013), the remaining forest cover continues to dwindle.[ The Amazon rainforest represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests, and comprises the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest in the world. 60% of the forest is contained within Brazil, followed by Peru with 13%, Colombia with 10%, and with minor amounts in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. The cattle sector of the Brazilian Amazon, incentivized by the international beef and leather trades, has been responsible for about 80% of all deforestation in the region,or about 14% of the world's total annual deforestation, making it the world's largest single driver of deforestation. By 1995, 70% of formerly forested land in the Amazon, and 91% of land deforested since 1970, had been converted to cattle ranching.Much of the remaining deforestation within the Amazon has resulted from farmers clearing land for small-scale subsistence agriculture or mechanized cropland producing soy, palm, and other crops.

Slave plantations

During the Atlantic slave trade, Latin America was the main destination of millions of black people transported from Africa to French, Portuguese, and Spanish colonies. Slavery was a cornerstone of the Spanish Casta system, and its legacy is the presence of large Afro-Latino populations. After the gradual emancipation of most black slaves, slavery continued along the Pacific coast of South America throughout the 19th century, as Peruvian slave traders kidnapped Polynesians, primarily from the Marquesas Islands and Easter Island and forced them to perform physical labour in mines and in the guano industry of Peru and Chile. The Spanish and Portuguese first began sugar cultivation on plantations on the Atlantic islands - the Canaries, Cape Verde and Madeira - then on São Tomé and Principe in the Gulf of Guinea. On those islands, close to the African coast, they also began to use African slaves, which were shipped a relatively short distance from the kingdom of Kongo. The sugar produced, shipped north to Europe, stimulated the European taste and demand for ever more sugar. But the giant leap in the popularity of the plantation model occurred with the transfer of it to the Americas. Columbus carried sugar cane on his second transatlantic voyage in 1493. Within a decade, it was being cultivated in Santo Domingo on Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) by men trained in this form of agriculture in the Canaries. From there, the Spanish developed sugar plantations in Jamaica and Puerto Rico. But sugar plantations really took off in Brazil under the Portuguese and Dutch, the cane initially being transplanted from Madeira in the 1540s. Two decades later, Brazil was producing 2,500 tons of sugar a year. The early plantations used a mix of labour: European settlers, local indigenous peoples and African slaves. This combination was rarely successful in sugar: Europeans disliked the work and the indigenous peoples refused to do it. Thus sugar soon came to depend overwhelmingly on forced African slave labour.

Grasslands (pampas, llanos)

Grassland: an area, as a prairie, in which the natural vegetation consists largely of perennial grasses, characteristic of subhumid and semiarid climates. Examples: Pampas, Llanos

ejidos

In Mexican system of government, this is an area of communal land used for agriculture, on which community members individually farm designated parcels and collectively maintain communal holdings.

Slash and burn agriculture

Method of agriculture used in the tropics, in which forest vegetation is felled and burned, the land is cropped for a few years, then the forest is allowed to reinvade.

Sierra Madres

Mexican mountain range Sierra Madre Occidental, a mountain range in northwestern Mexico and southern Arizona. Sierra Madre Oriental, a mountain range in northeastern Mexico. Sierra Madre de Oaxaca, a mountain range in south-central Mexico. Sierra Madre del Sur, a mountain range in southern Mexico.

Secular

Not concerned with religion or religious matters. Secular is the opposite of sacred.

Spanish & Portuguese

Portuguese and Spanish, although closely related sister languages, differ in many details of their phonology, grammar, and lexicon. Both are part of a broader group known as West Iberian Romance, which also includes several other languages or dialects with fewer speakers, all of which are mutually intelligible to some degree. *Check notes for this topic

Aztecs (Tenochtitlán)

The Aztec Empire flourished between c. 1345 and 1521 CE/AD and, at its greatest extent, covered most of northern Mesoamerica. Aztec warriors were able to dominate their neighbouring states and permit rulers such as Motecuhzoma II to impose Aztec ideals and religion across Mexico. Highly accomplished in agriculture and trade, the last of the great Mesoamerican civilizations was also noted for its art and architecture which ranks amongst the finest ever produced on the continent. The Aztec state is actually the most well documented Mesoamerican civilization with sources including archaeology, native books (codices) and lengthy and detailed accounts from their Spanish conquerors - both by military men and Christian clergy.

Terrace Farming

The Inca lived in the Andes Mountains, which stretch down the west coast of South America. Flat plains were very hard to find. Instead, the Inca dug terraces on mountains sides used to farm. There is a very interesting feature about the stone used to make the terraces. The stone would gather heat throughout the day and during the night would distribute the heat to the plants. These structures were helpful for other reasons too. Because they had stone around them, erosion was virtually impossible. They also had a built in irrigation system that caught water coming down the mountain and then distributed water to each plant.

MesoAmerica

The area extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua in which diverse pre-Columbian civilizations flourished.

Maya (Tikal & Chicken Itzá)

This civilization was a Mesoamerican civilization developed by the Maya peoples, and noted for its hieroglyphic script—the only known fully developed writing system of the pre-Columbian Americas—as well as for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system. The Maya civilization developed in an area that encompasses southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. This region consists of the northern lowlands encompassing the Yucatán Peninsula, and the highlands of the Sierra Madre, running from the Mexican state of Chiapas, across southern Guatemala and onwards into El Salvador, and the southern lowlands of the Pacific littoral plain.

Hernan Cortes

a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. He was part of the generation of Spanish colonizers who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.

Cash Crops

a crop produced for its commercial value rather than for use by the grower.

Dialect

a particular form of a language that is peculiar to a specific region or social group.

Chinuampa Farming

a type of Mesoamerican agriculture which used small, rectangular areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico. Chinampas were created by the freshwater shoreline of the Northern portion of the central lake system of Mexico by the Nahua peoples, commonly called the Aztecs. Sometimes erroneously referred to as "floating gardens", chinampas are artificial islands that were created by building up extensions of soil into bodies of water.

Isthmus of Panama

also historically known as the Isthmus of Darien, is the narrow strip of land that lies between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, linking North and South America. It contains the country of Panama and the Panama Canal.

Maize

also known as corn, is a large grain plant first domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The six major types of corn are dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, popcorn, flour corn, and sweet corn.

Tikal

an ancient Mayan citadel in the rainforests of northern Guatemala. Possibly dating to the 1st century A.D., Tikal flourished between 200 and 850 A.D. and was later abandoned. Its iconic ruins include the giant, ceremonial Lost World Pyramid and the Temple of the Grand Jaguar. At 70 meters, Temple IV is the tallest pre-Columbian structure in the Americas and offers sweeping views.

Llanos

an open grassy plain in South America or the southwestern United States.

Falkland Islands

are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about 300 miles east of South America's southern Patagonian coast. As a British overseas territory, the Falklands have internal self-governance, and the United Kingdom takes responsibility for their defence and foreign affairs. Controversy exists over the Falklands' discovery and subsequent colonisation by Europeans. At various times, the islands have had French, British, Spanish, and Argentine settlements. Britain reasserted its rule in 1833, although Argentina maintains its claim to the islands. In April 1982, Argentine forces temporarily occupied the islands. British administration was restored two months later at the end of the Falklands War. Most Falklanders favour the archipelago remaining a UK overseas territory, but its sovereignty status is part of an ongoing dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom.

Galapagos Islands

are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed on either side of the Equator in the Pacific Ocean surrounding the centre of the Western Hemisphere, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part. The islands are known for their vast number of endemic species and were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

Rain Forests

are forests characterized by high rainfall, There are two types of rainforest: tropical rainforest and temperate rainforest. Around 40% to 75% of all biotic species are indigenous to the rainforests. It has been estimated that there may be many millions of species of plants, insects and microorganisms still undiscovered in tropical rainforests. Tropical rainforests have been called the "jewels of the Earth" and the "world's largest pharmacy", because over one quarter of natural medicines have been discovered there. Rainforests are also responsible for 28% of the world's oxygen turnover, sometimes misnamed oxygen production,processing it through photosynthesis from carbon dioxide and consuming it through respiration.

Yucatan Peninsula

in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucatán Channel. The peninsula lies east of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, a northwestern geographic partition separating the region of Central America from the rest of North America.

Easter Island

is a Chilean island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle. Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapa Nui people. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site, with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park. Polynesian people most likely settled on Easter Island sometime between 700 and 1100 CE, and created a thriving and industrious culture as evidenced by the island's numerous enormous stone moai and other artefacts. However, human activity, the introduction of the Polynesian rat and overpopulation led to gradual deforestation and extinction of natural resources which severely weakened the Rapa Nui civilization. By the time of European arrival in 1722, the island's population had dropped to 2,000-3,000 from an estimated high of approximately 15,000 just a century earlier. European diseases and Peruvian slave raiding in the 1860s further reduced the Rapa Nui population, to a low of only 111 inhabitants in 1877. Easter Island is one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world.

Haciendas,

is a Spanish word for an estate. Some were plantations, mines or factories. Many combined these productive activities. The term is imprecise, but usually refers to landed estates of significant size.

Carnival

is a festival held before Lent every year and considered the biggest carnival in the world with two million people per day on the streets. The first festivals of Rio date back to 1723. The typical Rio carnival parade is filled with revelers, floats, and adornments from numerous samba schools which are located in Rio (more than 200 approximately, divided into 5 leagues/ divisions). A samba school is composed of a collaboration of local neighbours that want to attend carnival together, with some kind of regional, geographical common background.

Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

is a huge seaside city in Brazil, famed for its Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, 38m Christ the Redeemer statue atop Mount Corcovado and for Sugarloaf Mountain, a granite peak with cable cars to its summit. The city is also known for its sprawling favelas (shanty towns). Its raucous Carnaval festival, featuring parade floats, flamboyant costumes and samba dancers, is considered the world's largest.

Lake Titicaca

is a large, deep lake in the Andes on the border of Peru and Bolivia. By volume of water and by surface area, it is the largest lake in South America. It is often called the "highest navigable lake" in the world

Reggae

is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. Stylistically, reggae incorporates some of the musical elements of rhythm and blues, jazz, mento, calypso, African music, as well as other genres. One of the most easily recognizable elements is offbeat rhythms; staccato chords played by a guitar or piano (or both) on the offbeats of the measure. The concept of "call and response" can be found throughout reggae music. The genre of reggae music is lead by the drum and bass. Reggae has spread to many countries across the world, often incorporating local instruments and fusing with other genres. Reggae en Español spread from the mainland South America countries of Venezuela and Guyana to the rest of South America.

Atacama Desert

is a plateau in South America, covering a 1,000-kilometre strip (600 miles) of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. It is the driest non-polar desert in the world.

Caribbean Sea

is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Belize and Central America to the west and south west, to the north by the Greater Antilles starting with Cuba, to the east by the Lesser Antilles, and to the south by the north coast of South America.

Patagonia

is a sparsely populated region located at the southern end of South America, shared by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes mountains as well as the deserts, steppes and grasslands east of this southern portion of the Andes. Patagonia is a distinct geographical region at the base of South America spanning the lower sections of Argentina and Chile. The bottom of South America is also the closest landmass to Antarctica

Calypso Music

is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago during the early to mid-20th century and spread to the rest of Caribbean Antilles and Venezuela.

Catholicism

is a term which in its broadest sense refers to the beliefs and practices of Christian denominations that describe themselves as catholic. The Catholic Church during the Age of Discovery inaugurated a major effort to spread Christianity in the New World and to convert the Native Americans and other indigenous people. The evangelical effort was a major part of, and a justification for the military conquests of European powers such as Spain, France and Portugal. Christian Missions to the indigenous peoples ran hand-in-hand with the colonial efforts of Catholic nations.

Gauchos

is a word with several meanings. In its historical sense a it was one "who, in the 18th and 19th centuries, inhabited Argentina, Uruguay and Rio Grande do Sul. Today, in Argentina and Uruguay, a gaucho is simply "A country person, experienced in traditional cattle ranching work". Because historical gauchos were reputed to be brave, if unruly, the word is also applied metaphorically to mean "Noble, brave and generous", but also "One who is skilful in subtle tricks, crafty".

Machu Picchu

is an Incan citadel set high in the Andes Mountains in Peru, above the Urubamba River valley. Built in the 15th century and later abandoned, it's renowned for its sophisticated dry-stone walls that fuse huge blocks without the use of mortar, intriguing buildings that play on astronomical alignments and panoramic views. Its exact former use remains a mystery. Tucked away in the rocky countryside northwest of Cuzco, Peru, Machu Picchu is believed to have been a royal estate or sacred religious site for Inca leaders, whose civilization was virtually wiped out by Spanish invaders in the 16th century.

NAFTA

is an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. The goal of NAFTA (The North American Free Trade Agreement) to eliminate barriers to trade and investment between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Tierra Del Fuego

is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, and a group of many islands, including Cape Horn and Diego Ramírez Islands. Tierra del Fuego is divided between Chile and Argentina

Panama Canal

is an artificial 48-mile (77 km) waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. France began work on the canal in 1881 but stopped due to engineering problems and a high worker mortality rate. The United States took over the project in 1904 and opened the canal on August 15, 1914. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, the Panama Canal shortcut greatly reduced the time for ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans

Gulf of Mexico

is an ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. The U.S. states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas border the Gulf on the north

Mexico City (Mexico)

is the capital and most populous city of Mexico. It is one of the most important financial centers in the Americas. It is located in the Valley of Mexico. According to the most recent definition agreed upon by the federal and state governments, the Greater Mexico City population is 21.2 million people, making it the largest metropolitan area of the world's western hemisphere and and largest Spanish-speaking city in the world.

Pacific Ocean

is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean/Antarctica in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east. It covers about 46% of the Earth's water surface and about one-third of its total surface area, making it larger than all of the Earth's land area combined. The equator subdivides it into the North Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean,

Amazon River Basin

is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. It covers an area of about 7,500,000 km², or roughly 40 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. Most of the basin is covered by the Amazon Rainforest, also known as Amazonia. With a 2,100,000 sq mi area of dense tropical forest, this is the largest rainforest in the world.

Atlantic Ocean

is the second largest of the world's oceans, slightly more than half that of the Pacific Ocean.[3] It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earth's surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area. It separates the "Old World" from the "New World". It is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean, to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south (other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica). The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean.

Cape Horn

is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America, Cape Horn marks the northern boundary of the Drake Passage and marks where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans collide. For decades it was a major milestone on the clipper route, by which sailing ships carried trade around the world. The waters around Cape Horn are particularly hazardous, owing to strong winds, large waves, strong currents and icebergs; these dangers have made it notorious as a sailors' graveyard. The need for ships to round Cape Horn was greatly reduced by the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914.

Magacity

is usually defined as a metropolitan area with a total population in excess of ten million people. It can be a single metropolitan area or two or more metropolitan areas that converge. The terms conurbation, metropolis and metroplex are also applied to the latter. *Mexico City and Rio de Janerio are examples

Andes Mountains

line the western edge of South America, from Venezuela all the way along Chile to South America's southern tip (about 9,000 km in all), making them the longest mountain range in the world.

Tenochtitlán

located on an island near the western shore of Lake Texcoco in central Mexico, this was the capital city and religious centre of the Aztec civilization. The traditional founding date of the city was 1345 CE/AD and it remained the most important Aztec centre until its destruction at the hands of the conquering Spanish led by Hernán Cortés in 1521 CE, which led to the final collapse of the Aztec Empire. At the heart of the city was a large sacred precinct dominated by the huge pyramid, known as the Temple Mayor, which honoured the gods Huitzilopochtli and Tlaloc. The site, now Mexico City, continues to be excavated and has yielded some of the greatest treasures of Aztec art such as the celebrated Sun Stone as well as art objects the Aztecs themselves collected from the other great civilizations of Mesoamerica.

Developing World

reference to those regions of the world that are held to be lesser developed with respect to urbanization and industrialization.

Internal Migration

refers to people within a country moving to another location within its borders, whereas external migration, also known as international migration, refers to the act of migration across borders from one country to another. Usually, the motivations for internal and external migration differ.

Inca (Machu Picchu)

this was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America, and possibly the largest empire in the world in the early 16th century. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th century. Its last stronghold was conquered by the Spanish in 1572. From 1438 to 1533, the Incas used methods including conquest and peaceful assimilation, to incorporate a large portion of western South America, centered on the Andean mountain ranges. At its largest, the empire joined Peru, large parts of modern Ecuador, western and south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, north and central Chile and a small part of southern Colombia into a state comparable to the historical empires of Eurasia. Its official language was Quechua. Many local forms of worship persisted in the empire, most of them concerning local sacred Huacas, but the Inca leadership encouraged the worship of Inti—their sun god—and imposed its sovereignty above other cults such as that of Pachamama. The Incas considered their king, the Sapa Inca, to be the "son of the sun."

Nationalization

to bring under the ownership or control of a nation, as industries and land: (example: a movement to nationalize the oil industry)

Equator

usually refers to an imaginary line on the Earth's surface equidistant from the North Pole and South Pole, dividing the Earth into the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere.