South America

South America is a continent situated in the western hemisphere and, mostly, the southern hemisphere, bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean; North America and the Caribbean Sea lie to the northwest. Commonly referred to as part of the Americas, like North America, South America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, who was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a New World unknown to Europeans. South America has an area of 17,840,000 km² (6,890,000 sq mi), or almost 3.5% of the Earth's surface. As of 2005, its population was estimated at more than 371,000,000. South America ranks fourth in area (after Asia, Africa, and North America) and fifth in population (after Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America).

Geography

Geographically, South America is generally considered a continent forming the southern portion of the American landmass, south and east of the Panama Canal transecting the Isthmus of Panama. Depending on source, South and North America are sometimes considered a single continent or super continent, while constituent regions are infrequently considered subcontinents. Geopolitically, all of Panama – including the segment east of the Panama Canal in the isthmus – is often considered a part of North America alone and among the countries of Central America.

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It became attached to North America only recently (geologically speaking) with the formation of the Isthmus of Panama some 3 million years ago, which resulted in the Great American Interchange. The Andes, likewise a comparatively young and seismically restless mountain range, run down the western edge of the continent; the land to the east of the Andes is largely tropical rain forest, the vast Amazon River basin. The continent also contains drier regions such as Patagonia and the extremely arid Atacama desert. The South American continent also includes various islands, most of which belong to countries on the continent. The Caribbean territories are grouped with North America. The South American nations that border the Caribbean Sea – including Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana – are also known as Caribbean South America.

South America contains the world's highest waterfall, Angel Falls, the largest river (by volume), the Amazon, the longest mountain range, the Andes, the driest desert, Atacama, the largest rainforest, Amazon, the highest capital city, La Paz, Bolivia, and the world's southernmost city, Ushuaia, Argentina.

Major natural resources are copper, iron ore, tin, and oil. The many resources of South America have become useful around the world. However, they often have hindered the development of diversified economies. This has led to major highs and lows in the economy of South American states, often also causing political instability. South America is home to many interesting and unique species of animals including the llama, anaconda, pirana, jaguar, vicuna, and tapir. The Amazon rainforests possess high biodiversity, containing a major proportion of the Earth's species.

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The largest country in South America by far, in both area and population, is Brazil, followed by Argentina. Regions in South America include the Andean States, the Guianas, the Southern Cone, and Eastern South America.

South America is thought to have been first inhabited by people crossing the Bering Land Bridge, now the Bering strait.

History of South America

While perhaps the last continent--except Antarctica to be inhabited by humans, the history of South America spans the full range of human cultural and civilizational forms. While millennia of independent development were interrupted by the Spanish and Portuguese colonization drive of the 16th Century and the demographic collapse that followed, the continent's mestizo and indigenous cultures remain quite distinct from those of their colonizers. Through the trans-Atlantic slave trade, South America (especially Brazil) became the home of millions of people in the African Diaspora. The tensions between colonial countries in Europe, indigenous peoples and escaped slaves shaped South America from the 16th through the 19th Centuries.

South America is thought to have been first inhabited by people crossing the Bering Land Bridge, now the Bering strait. Over the course of millennia, people spread to all parts of the continent. By the first millennium CE, South America’s vast rainforests, mountains, plains and coasts were the home of tens of millions of people. Some groups formed permanent settlements. Among those groups were the Chibchas (or "Muiscas" or "Muyscas") and the Tairona. The Chibchas of Colombia, the Quechuas of Peru and the Aymaras of Bolivia were the 3 most important sedentary Indian groups in South America. In the last two thousand years there may have been contact with Polynesians across the South Pacific Ocean, as shown by the spread of the sweet potato through some areas of the Pacific, but there is no genetic legacy of human contact.

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Before the arrival of Europeans, an estimated 30 million people lived in South America.

In 1494, Portugal and Spain, the two great maritime powers of that time, on the expectation of new lands being discovered in the west, signed the Treaty of Tordesilhas, by which they agreed that all the land outside Europe should be an exclusive duopoly between the two countries. The Treaty established an imaginary line along a north-south meridian 370 leagues west of Cape Verde Islands, roughly 46° 37' W. In terms of the treaty, all land to the west of the line (which is now known to comprehend most of the South American soil), would belong to Spain, and all land to the east, to Portugal. As accurate measurements of longitude were impossible by that time, the line was not strictly enforced, resulting in a Portuguese expansion of Brazil across the meridian. Beginning in the 1530s, the people and natural resources of South America were repeatedly exploited by foreign conquistadors, first from Spain and later from Portugal. These competing colonial nations claimed the land and resources as their own and divided it into colonies.

European diseases (smallpox, influenza, measles and typhus) to which the native populations had no resistance and cruel systems of forced labor (such as the infamous encomiendas and mining industry's mita) decimated the American population under Spanish control. After this, African slaves, who had developed immunities to these diseases, were quickly brought in to replace them. The Spaniards were committed to converting their American subjects to Christianity and were quick to purge any native cultural practices that hindered this end. However, most initial attempts at this were only partially successful, as American groups simply blended Catholicism with their traditional beliefs. The Spaniards did not impose their language to the degree they did their religion. In fact, the missionary work of the Catholic Church in Quechua, Nahuatl, and Guarani actually contributed to the expansion of these American languages, equipping them with writing systems. Eventually the natives and the Spaniards interbred, forming a Mestizo class (or race). Mestizos and the original Americans were often forced to pay unfair taxes to the Spanish government and were punished harshly for disobeying their laws. Many native artworks were considered pagan idols and destroyed by Spanish explorers. This included a great number gold and silver sculptures, which were melted down before transport to Europe.

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The Spanish colonies won their independence in the first quarter of the 19th century, in the South American Wars of Independence. Simon Bolivar and José de San Martín led their independence struggle. Although Bolivar attempted to keep the Spanish-speaking parts of the continent politically unified, they rapidly became independent of one another as well, and several further wars were fought, such as the War of the Triple Alliance and the War of the Pacific. In the Portuguese colony Dom Pedro I (also Pedro IV of Portugal), son of the Portuguese king Dom João VI, proclaimed the country's independence in 1822 and became Brazil's first Emperor. This was peacefully accepted by the crown in Portugal, upon compensation.

A few countries did not gain independence until the 20th century:

Guyana, from the United Kingdom, in 1966.
Suriname, from the Dutch control, in 1975
Trinidad and Tobago, from the United Kingdom, in 1962

The continent, like many others, became a battlefield of the Cold War in the late 20th century. The government of Chile was overthrown in the early 1970s, as a late (and peculiar) development of the U.S. Monroe Doctrine. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Peru suffered from internal conflicts. Other revolutions and military dictatorships have been common. International indebtedness became a notable problem, as most recently illustrated by Argentina's default in the early 21st century.

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Languages of the Americas

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Archaeology of the Americas

Population history of American indigenous peoples