The Many Lands of South America

Reported by:Genevieve C. Serilo BSEd 2D

The Many Lands of South America

•Today, the larger countries of this region are diversifying their

economies and attempting to meet the

demands of rapidly growing populations.

South America is a continent in change.

Three Sub Regionsof South America

•Andes Mountains System•Middle-Latitude South•Brazil

1. The Andes Mountains System

o They rise from the waters of the Caribbean in eastern Venezuela and curve southward along the continent’s west coast for 4,000 miles.

The Andes Mountains

Four Human Settlements found in Andes Mts.

o Hot and humid coastal lowlands

o Warm piedmonts

o Cool uplands

o Alpine pastures predominate

o Lower levels of oxygen and lower atmospheric pressure

The Northern Andean Nations of

Venezuela, Columbia and

Ecuador

Venezuelao Caracas, the

capital is located at an elevation of 3,000 ft. above sea level.

o The birthplace of Bolivar, it is one of the continent’s leading centers of education.

Oil: Venezuela’s Wealtho With proven oil

reserves of 60 billion barrels, Venezuela has the largest reserves of any country outside the Middle East, with the possible exception of Russia and Indonesia.

o It is also the second-largest supplier of oil to the United States, next to Saudi Arabia.

Lake Maracaibo

The Vast Tar deposits along the Orinoco River

A Multi-purpose Dam is being constructed at

Guárico River

Today, less than 5 percent of Venezuela’s labor force is

engaged in industry and its population in the 1990s is

growing rapidly.

Because the country’s standard of living depends more on oil than on its productive capacity, Venezuela is facing low economic

growth, lower standards of living, high levels of inflation and unemployment.

Natural Wonders of Venezuela

o The Angel Falls is Venezuela’s cream of the crop; it is the world’s tallest waterfalls standing at 979 meters, roughly a kilometer in height.

Orinoco Deltao Located in the

eastern side of Venezuela, the Orinoco Delta is a fan-shaped landscape perfect for picnics and lunch-outs.

La Gran Sabanao Located in the

Brazilian-Venezuelan border, this picturesque wonder is the home to some of Venezuela’s endemic species.

Mochima National Park

o This land area is so vast that it covers 94,930 hectares and it stretches itself to Venezuela’s northern shores.

Puerto La Cruzo Puerto La

Cruz is Venezuela’s prime beach complex, and is located in the eastern part of Venezuela, just the neighbor of the beaches of Mochima National Park.

Columbiao Bogotá, the capital,

with a population of 6 million people, is located at an elevation of 8, 500 ft. in the easternmost mountain range.

o Cotton, sugarcane, cocoa, cattle and coffee became the country’s most important economic products.

•The forested slopes of the Pacific coast•The grasslands east of the Andes (the Llanos Orientales)

Two Major Regions of Columbia:

Coca, from which cocaine is derived, has emerged as a high-

value crop replacing food-producing agriculture.

In 1993, however oil began to flow from a large field located about 100 miles east of

Bogotá, providing the country with its largest economic bonanza ever.

Natural Wonders of Columbia

o Also known as The Virgin Nature, Gorgona is an island about 50 km off the coast of the Colombian Pacific that speaks of biodiversity.

o As an oceanic island sizing up to 24 km2, 85% of it is covered by thick tropical jungle, which is home to babilla alligators, reptiles and marine turtles.

Gorgona Natural Park

La Tatacoa Deserto Covering an area of

330 km2, the La Tatacoa is located near the municipality of Villavieja, which is known to be Colombia’s paleontological capital.

o La Tatacoa serves as an astronomical rise in which 88 constellations can be observed.

Sumapaz Mooro A 154 –

hectare marsh land rich in diverse fauna and flora species, the Sumapaz Moor is located in Bogota, and is widely accepted as the world’s largest moor.

Flamingos Natural Park

o Since 1977, it has been a sanctuary to a huge American flamingo population, which is easily the main tourist attraction, although many other varieties can also be seen.

Amacayacu: The Hammock River

o Covering a 293,500 – hectare area, the Amacayacu is truly a place of adventure and exploration. Its flora and fauna is richly luxurious, and about 486 bird species have been recorded to inhabit the place. Notably, it is also home to the world’s smallest primate, the lion marmoset (Leontopithecus rosalia).

Choco Foresto Found in

Choco, Colombia, it is considered as one of the natural wonders of the world.

o It is considered by many experts as the richest lowland when it comes to flora and fauna.

Ecuadoro In the Andean

highlands, where most of Ecuador’s 10.3 million people live, the population is predominantly native Indian.

o There is a subsistence cultivation of corn, barley, wheat and potatoes.

On the eastern slopes of the mountains, the vast tropical forests of the Amazon River begins, are the

homelands of the Jivaro Indian tribes.

Natural Wonders of Ecuador

o One of the most famous islands in the world for all naturalists, Galapagos Islands and its diversely radiated finches and turtles gave way to Charles Darwin’s crucial insights on the theory of evolution and natural selection.

Galapagos Rifto Galapagos Rift,

Equador is a volcanic hotspot located in the East Pacific Ocean that resulted in the formation of the Galapagos Islands and Malpelso, Carnegie, Cocos all which are aseismic ridge systems lying on two tectonic plates.

El Oriente’s Rainforest

o El Oriente will give you a peek into the abundance of the Amazon Rainforest, the largest rainforest ecosystem in the world, featuring its lowland tropical broad leaf rainforest that is also part of the Amazon Basin.

Cuicocha Lakeo Cuicocha Lake is

actually a crater lake located at the foot of the already extinct Cotacahi Volcano.

o The place has become a trekking and hiking area for nature lovers because of the deep blue water of the lake and the extraordinary terrain.

Isla de la Platao Isla de la Plata

has been nicknamed “Silver Island.”

o Either way, the tour into this tiny, peaceful island will give you a change to sight numerous humpback whales, dolphins and a variety of birds.

Cotopaxi National Park

o The experience won’t be complete without a glimpse into Cotopaxi National Park which boasts one of the tallest and still active volcanoes on earth, the Cotopaxi Volcano.

o Surrounding this majestic landmass are beautiful lakes and mountain scenery with glaciers that sparkle in the sun.

Ecuador’s Chimborazo Volcano, with an altitude of over 20, 000

ft., is part of the Ring of Fire.

The Mountain Republics of

Peru and Bolivia

Peruo Roughly one-

third of Peru’s population, its richest agricultural land, and most of the country’s manufacturing, fishing, and petroleum production, is found along the coast.

• 1. Around Lake Titicaca, where the moderating climatic influence of the lake makes corn cultivation possible at high elevations;

Three areas of dense settlement are found in the highlands:

Lake Titicaca, world’s highest navigable lake.

2. Near Cuzco, the old capital of the Inca Empire

3. At the mining complex of Cerro de Pasco, inland from Lima

Natural Wonders of Peru

o Alpamayo Mountain is a candidate for one of the Seven Natural Wonders of South America.

o Although lower than some of the surrounding peaks, it does reach a height of 19,511 feet (5,947 m).

Alpamayo Mountain

Gocta Cataractso Most of the

waterfalls in the world only have a single drop, but Gocta Cataracts is different, it has two drops which reach 771 meters in height, making it the third tallest free-leaping waterfall in the word.

El Mistio Standing at

19,000 feet above sea level, El Misti is a stratovolcano located in the southern part of Peru.

Lake Titicacao Lake Titicaca

is divided in to two sides where the eastern side of the lake belongs to Bolivia while the western side is for Peru.

Manu National Parko This park

is home to more than 20,000 species of flowers and faunal species that would make you feel that you are in an African safari.

Amazon Rainforest

o The colorful birds are perfect for your kids to enjoy watching. Truly, the Amazon Rainforest is the affirmation of Peru’s innate wonders.

Peru’s Colca Canyon is more than twice as deep as the

Grand Canyon.

Boliviao The people of

Bolivia, two-thirds of whom speak indigenous languages, are divided by race, language and local economy.

Elsewhere, settlement is limited by climate and terrain, and primary settlement nodes are determined by location of Bolivia’s mining

economy (tin and other metals), which provides 80% of the country’s export.

La Paz is the highest capital at more than 12,

000 ft. in elevation.

Natural Wonders of Bolivia

o It is the largest salt flat on Earth which was formerly part of Lake Minchin, a prehistoric lake.

Salar de Uyuni

Lake Titicacao Located in

the borders of Peru and Bolivia, Lake Titicaca has the highest-point elevation among the lakes in the world.

Los Espejilloso Despite being a

landlocked country, Bolivia possesses a number of sparkling waterfalls. One of these is found in Los Espejillos, in the western part of Sta. Cruz.

Illampuo Despite being

only the 4th highest in terms of altitude, Illampu is considered as one of the most challenging climb in Bolivia.

Benio Much of

Bolivia’s diverse wildlife and vegetation is reflected in the department of Beni, part of the tropical lowlands of Bolivia.

Yungaso The Yungas acts

like a transitional zone between the eastern forests and the Andes. It exhibits neotropic Eco zones in that not only is it humid and rainy, but also warm.

Elongated Chile

The Andes Ranges converge in the south to form a narrow mountain spine that sweeps 2, 500 miles toward the South

Pole. This outlines the long, narrow Pacific Republic of Chile.

Northern Chileo In Northern

Chile, the Atacama Desert extends 600 miles along the coast.

o Rich nitrate deposits and copper ore mines are the vital contributions of the Chilean north to the national economy.

Atacama Desert

Southern Chile

o The Southern extreme of Chile, from the Bío-Bío River to the tip of Tierra del Fuego, is also thinly populated.

o It is a region with a cool, damp environment of forests and fjords.

Today, forestry on the Pacific coast, sheep raising in high mountain valleys and petroleum discoveries in Terra del

Fuego have integrated this region into the national economy.

Punta Arenas, Chile, is the southernmost city

in the world.

Central Valley: the “heartland” of Chile

o Between the Northern Deserts and the Southern Forests lies the Central Valley, where some 65% of the nation’s 13.5 million people live.

o Central Valley is the most favored agricultural region of Chile.

Natural Wonders found in Chile

o The Bío-bío River is Chile’s second longest river with a length of 380 kilometers.

o River rafting is one of the most exciting activities in the river and you will be pumped with adrenal hormones as you paddle it hard to conquer the river’s rapids.

Ranco Lakeo Located in the

province of Ranco in Chile, Ranco lake is the fourth largest lake in Chile and is a popular destination for family outings and friendly getaways.

Vina del Maro The name

itself affirms nature’s touch, the Vineyard by the Sea.

o Vina del Mar is a beach complex located in Chile’s central coast which faces the Pacific Ocean.

Los Lagos Region

o Los Lagos Region is a home to different natural wonders including the waterfall that can be found in the Chaicas River.

Osorno Volcanoo Osorno Volcano

is an active volcano in Chile;famous for its very distinct white top covered with ice. It somehow resembles the famous volcano in Japan, Mt. Fuji.

2. The Middle-Latitude South

The three temperate countries of Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay are part of a middle-latitude prairie that stretches from the

foothills of the Andes Mountains eastward to the coast of the Atlantic

Ocean.

Argentina in Developmen

t

• In Argentina, early colonization of native Indians, strong

European immigration, and the economic development of the

fertile grasslands of the pampas have created a unique land and people reminiscent of the American development of

the Great Plains.

After 1880s, Native Indians were driven from the pampas, and

cattle ranches were founded to feed the expanding populations

of industrial Europe.

The pampas are now the core of Argentina. Two-thirds of

Argentina’s population of 33.5 million people live on this

grassland, which produces 80 percent of the nation’s exports.

Buenos Aires, with a population near 12 million, is a primate city which is much larger

than any other city in the country.

• The scrub forests of the Chaco in the north,• The Andean foothills in the west, and•Windswept Patagonia to the South

- Now contribute to the national economy.

The three less-developed regions of Argentina:

The Chaco is now a pioneer region where logging and cattle-

raising are supplemented by cotton, sugar and tobacco.

In the foothills of the Argentine Andes, sugar, grapes and other

fruit crops are grown.

On the barren tablelands of Patagonia, which stretch 1,000 miles south from the

pampas to the tip of the continent, population growth has been limited by

political enmity between Chile and Argentina and by environmental

constraints.

The “Train of the Clouds” crosses the viaduct of Polvorilla in northern

Argentina. South American railways are among the highest in the world.

Natural Wonders of Argentina

o It is a complex system of waterfalls. There are some noting that Iguassu Falls is made up of 275 separate falls, however the locals say there are 75 separate falls.

o Iguazu Falls is one of the Seven Wonders of South America.

Iguassu Falls

Rio Correntoso and Lacar Lake

o Rio Correntoso and Lacar Lake are two water related facets of nature located in Patagonia, Argentina and is a home to different kinds of flora and fauna.

Mar del Plata Beaches

o Mar del Plata is the best place for those who want to spend quality time with the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

o Sunrise in the Mar del Plata beach area is also very tranquil; it makes you feel that the heavenly bodies are getting close to nature.

Barilocheo Bariloche is a

mountain province located in the western part of central Argentina.

o The place is perfect for taking a variety of landscape photographs with lakes, mountains, glacier ice, forests and more.

Patagoniao In areas where

temperature is not freezing, Patagonia has several lakes and streams for you to ford.

The La Plata Countries of

Paraguay and Uruguay

•Uruguay, with its mild climate, low-rolling terrain, and rich grasslands, is a buffer zone between the two large and powerful nations of Brazil and Argentina.•Originally settled by the Portuguese, then taken over by Spain, Uruguay revolted against both countries and eventually became independent in 1825.

Uruguay

The introduction of sheep and immigration from

Spain and Italy are keys to Uruguay’s modern

development.

Its economy is deeply engaged in animal husbandry. In fact, sheep and cattle outnumber

people by ten to one in Uruguay, and about 70 percent of the territory of the country is in

pasture.

The Uruguayans, half of whom live in the primate city of

Montevideo(population of 1.6 million), have the highest literacy

rate, the lowest rate of natural increase, the best diet and one of the

highest standards of living of any South American country.

Natural Wonders of Uruguay

Punta del Esteo A popular

resort town in the south-eastern side of Uruguay, Punta del Este is high-class holiday relaxation experience with a variety of beaches and shorelines to discover.

Lunarejo Valleyo Its ravines and

prairies have become home hundreds of bird species (with only about 150 identified), amphibians and reptiles. This biological richness has made the valley a valuable area not only as a sightseeing site but also as a habitat for many organisms.

Vulture Gorgeo Containing the

largest canyon in the country that has an outgrowth of a subtropical forest at the foot of the gorge, Vulture Gorge, or Quebrada de los Cuervos to the natives, resembles a figure of a throat and is close to Treinta-y-Tres.

Esteros de Farrapos

National Parko Alongside Esteros

de Farrapos are 24 other islands enclosed in the protective measures.

o There are also over 200 bird species identified in that park with a number of mammals, reptiles, amphibians and butterflies.

Rochao A mix of

spectacular landscapes and waterscapes as well as a wide diversity of flora and fauna is the features you would find upon arriving in this department.

Rochao A hidden gem

inside Rocha is Cabo Palonio where you can find sea lions lazing about in the sand dunes. There’s just so many things to discover in Rocha which makes it an unlimited experience.

• The eastern third of Paraguay, with its rich soils, luxuriant grasslands, and gentle terrain, was settled by the Spanish.• The western two-thirds of the country, the wilderness scrub forest known as the Chaco, was brought into the Spanish domain by the Roman Catholic missionaries.

Paraguay

Currently, the only productive agricultural zone in Paraguay is located near the capital city of

Asunción where cotton, tobacco, and market gardening are important.

Throughout the remainder of Paraguay, extensive cattle

ranches and slash-and-burn agriculture of cotton, corn,

manioc and beans are found.

Asunción

Natural Wonders of Paraguay

Iguassu Falls

o Being a UNESCO World Natural Heritage site, the Iguassu Falls carries a stunning and wonderful beauty with the waters running down such a wide cliff that is twice the width of Niagara Falls.

Gran Chacoo Found on the

lowland region of Rio de la Plata basin, this sparsely populated plain gives an excellent home to over 5000 species of which almost 500 of them are relatives of the cultivated species but is wild.

Mbatoví Eco-Reserve

o Endangered species are also found here such as the Chachi fern. The waters in the reserve is unpolluted that is why species in the area has been flourishing. Birds, reptiles and mammals are also abundant in Mbatoví eco-reserve.

3. Brazil

Discovered by accident in 1500 by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Cabral, Brazil is the 5th largest

country in the world and the largest in Latin America.

• The old Northeast on the country’s Atlantic “shoulder”;• The East, focused on the throbbing industrial

heartland of São Paulo and the traditional capital, Rio de Janeiro;• The South;• The wilderness of the Central West, brought into the

modern age by the construction of the new capital of Brasília; and• Amazônia, the world’s largest drainage basin and

rainforest, a region now threatened by increasing human activity.

Five Basic Regions found in Brazil:

The Northeast

The old Northeast, surrounding the

shoulder of Brazil, is the culture hearth of Portuguese America.

•The warm, rainy coasts of the Northeast are well suited to

sugarcane cultivation, and the Northeast still produces one-third

of Brazil’s agricultural harvest.• In some places, the fertile red

soils of the coastal lowlands have been producing cane and cacao for 400 years. Recently, cotton

has been introduced in the drier coastal areas and in the fringes of

the upland interior.

The bulk of the Northeast’s population of 44 million lives

east of a line drawn across the shoulder from the northerly city

of Fortaleza (population of 2 million)

To the southerly city of Salvador

(population of 2.3 million).

Recife, long the most important settlement in this region, has a population of

2.5 million today.

The culture of Brazil was largely formed in the backcountry of

the Northeast, in what Brazilians call their sertao.

The sertao is a barren land covered by dry land grasses

and thorny scrub.

The coast and the sertao are quite different.

•The cyclic nature of drought, worsened by deforestation in the sertao, makes

this region overpopulated.

• In the coastal lowlands, the persistence of rigid

social barriers, absentee landlords, and

exhaustion of the soil have encouraged

migration out of the Northeast to the more

dynamic regions of contemporary Brazil.

•More than 3.5 million Brazilians have

emigrated from the Northeast in the last generation to escape

one of the most poverty-stricken areas

in the hemisphere.

The East

Eastern Brazil makes up one-tenth of the land area of Brazil, but has nearly one-half of the country’s

population.

Four of every ten Brazilians live in densely settled

countryside around the nation’s two

largest cities,

São Paulo (population of 19

million)

Rio de Janeiro (population of 12

million)

In 1910, the discovery of rich mineral deposits north of Rio de Janeiro

led to a flood of international

investment in the region.

The world’s largest reserves of iron ore are found in Brazil, which is both the top exporter and producer of iron

ore in the world.

•A basic problem for Brazil has been energy

sources.

The Brazilian South

•The Brazilian South, which supports one-sixth

of the country’s population, experienced

a different pattern of colonization than

elsewhere in Brazil.

•The first to penetrate the interior of the South were the

Germans, who grew corn, rye, and potatoes,

and raised pigs.

•Italian immigrants later extended the

frontier, clearing the forests and planting vineyards deeper in

the interior.

•As high-technology farming envelopes the Brazilian South, people

with small farms are being driven out, and

the South is beginning to bear the mark of a

fundamental Brazilian problem – landlessness.

The Itaipú Hydroelectric Dam

The Central West

•The “first front” of the Brazilian frontier in the middle 1960s extended into the Central West,

which surface geography is largely composed of

exposed rock.

Vegetation tends to be a mix of savanna and scrub

woodland known as the Campo Cerrado.

Despite these conditions, farming expanded

throughout the region, but the main stray of the Central West soon became livestock

raising.

Symbol of the Brazilian desire (and need) to conquer the wilderness, Brasília was founded

in 1959 as a planned, forward capital.

Brasília

Amazônia

The vast Amazonian interior has been hailed as one of the world’s last frontiers.

•The region’s tropical environment stubbornly resisted all but the most

determined efforts at permanent European

settlement until recently.

Belém (population of 1.2 million), gateway to the

Amazon, is the focus for the development of the Eastern

Amazon.

Iron ore and hydropower are under development in the

state of Pará.

Inland, the 3,900 mile-long river passes by Manaus, capital of Brazil’s largest state,

Amazonas.

The continuously hot, humid climate and infertile soils of the tropical rain forests that cover

the Amazon basin kept it almost unoccupied by Europeans until

modern times.

The construction of a Trans-Amazonian Highway Network

linking the major regions of the Amazon.

•Amazônia is Brazil’s hope for the future. Mining and selling

the minerals of Amazônia are seen as a way to pay off

the country’s soaring debts.

Natural Wonders of Brazil

Amazon Rainforest

Iguassu Fallso These

waterfalls are found in the province of Misiones that splits the Iguazu River into two parts, the upper and lower Iguazu.

o Iguassu Falls is one of the Seven Wonders of South America.

Chapada dos Veadeiros National

Parko Almost 200

kilometers north of Brasilia, this park covers 231,000 square miles of vast floras and faunas, along with the different vegetation it possess.

Fernando de Noronha

o Fernando de Noronha is an archipelago consisting of 21 islands, about 350 kilometers off the Brazilian coast.

o Fernando de Noronha is also a UNESCO World Heritage site, and visitation of the archipelago is limited to few visits.

Atlantic Foresto Animals are

abundant in this forest including about 200 endemic bird species and harbors 5% of the vertebrates on the planet. The Atlantic Forest is also home to about 8% of the plants in the world, with some 450 species of trees recorded.

Flooded Forest

o The Flooded Forest is 300,000 square kilometers, comprising 6% of the total ecosystem of the Amazon basin.

Sugar Loaf Mountain

o The peak is the only example of the monolithic morros made of granite and quartz that mount directly in a straight form from the edge of the water from the mouth of Guanabara Bay.

The Guianas (Guyana, Suriname

and French Guiana)

French Guiana

o It is an overseas region of France.

o Its 83,534 km2 (32,253 sq mi) have a very low population density of less than 3 km2 (1.2 sq mi).

Half of its 236,250 people in 2011 live in the

metropolitan area of Cayenne, its capital.

A large part of the department's economy derives from the presence of the Guiana Space

Centre, now the European Space Agency's primary launch site near the equator.

In 2008, the GDP of French Guiana at market exchange rates was US$4.72 billion (€3.21 billion)ranking as the

largest economy in the Guianas, and the 11th largest in South America.

French Guiana is consists of two main geographical

regions: a coastal strip where the majority of the people live, and dense,

near-inaccessible rainforest which gradually rises to the modest peaks

of the Tumac-Humac mountains along the

Brazilian frontier.

Tumac-Humac Mountains

French Guiana's highest peak is Bellevue de l'Inini

in Maripasoula (851 m (2,792 ft)

Other mountains include Mont Machalou (782 m (2,566

ft)

Mont St Marcel (635 m (2,083 ft)

Mont Favard (200 m (660 ft)

Montagne du Mahury (156 m (512 ft)

The three Îles du Salut (Salvation Islands)

Devil's Island

Prison Block

Îles du Connétable Bird Sanctuary

Île Royale

The Petit-Saut dam hydroelectric dam in the north of French Guiana

forms an artificial lake and provides hydroelectricity.

Waki River

The Guiana Amazonian Park, one of the nine

national parks of France.

Suriname (formerly

Dutch Guiana)

Surinameo At just

under 165,000 km2 (64,000 sq mi), Suriname is the smallest sovereign state in South America.

Suriname has a population of approximately 560,000, most of whom live on the country's north

coast, where the capital Paramaribo is located.

The economy is dominated by the mining industry, with exports of alumina, gold, and oil accounting for about 85% of exports and 25% of government revenues, making the

economy highly vulnerable to mineral price volatility.

Highest point: Juliana Top - 1,230 meters (4,040 ft)

Guiana Shield

Bakhuys Mountains

Mt. Tafelberg at 1,026 metres (3,366 ft)

Mount Kasikasima at 718 metres (2,356

ft)

Voltzberg at 240 metres (790 ft)

Coppename River Watershed

The Central Suriname Nature Reserve is a UNESCO World Heritage Site cited for its

unspoiled forests biodiversity.

Wia Wia Natural Reserve

The country has one large reservoir, the

Brokopondo Reservoir.

Brownsberg Natural Reserve

Guyana (formerly

British Guiana)

Guyana o Guyana is a developing nation on the north coast of South America.

o The vast majority of Guyanese nationals live along the coast, leaving the interior largely unpopulated and undeveloped.

Around one-third of the population (230,000) live

in the capital, Georgetown.

In 2011, the GDP of Guyana at market exchange rates, at PPP, was $5.783 billion (total) and

$7,465 (per capita)

The country can be divided into

five natural regions:

• A narrow and fertile marshy plain along the Atlantic coast (low coastal plain) where most of the population lives;• A white sand belt more inland (hilly sand and clay region), containing most of Guyana's mineral deposits;• The dense rain forests (Forested Highland Region) in the southern part of the country;• The desert savannah in the southern west;• And the smallest interior lowlands (interior savannah) consisting mostly of mountains that gradually rise to the Brazilian border.

Mount Ayanganna (2,042 metres / 6,699 feet)

Monte Caburaí (1,465 metres / 4,806 feet)

Mount Roraima (2,810 metres / 9,219 feet – the highest

mountain in Guyana) on the Brazil-Guyana-Venezuela tripoint

border, part of the Pakaraima range.

Pakaraima Range

Guyana's table-top mountains (tepuis)

Rupununi Savanna and Kanuku Mts.

Kanuku Mountains

Kaieteur Falls

Essequibo River at 1,010 kilometres (628 mi) long.

The Courantyne River at 724 kilometres (450 mi).

The Berbice River at 595 kilometres (370 mi).

The Demerara River at 346 kilometres (215 mi)

Shell Beach o The 145 km (90 mi) wide Shell Beach lies along the northwest coast, which is also a major breeding area for sea turtles (mainly Leatherbacks) and other wildlife.

Kaieteur National Park

Historic Georgetown