LATIN AMERICA3.1 | Environment and Culture

ENVIRONMENT

• Latin America is huge• 3 sub regions

• Middle America• The Caribbean• South America

• Middle America = Mexico and Central America• Central America is an isthmus • Tectonic plates

• Mexico’s mountain ranges surrounding a plateau • The Yucatan Peninsula and dense jungles

• Central America’s mountainous spine and jungles• The Panama Canal

ENVIRONMENT

• The Caribbean (West Indies)• Greater Antilles (big islands)• Lesser Antilles (archipelago) • The Bahamas

• South America• The Andes and the Amazon Basin

• Longest mountain system, largest river (volume)• The Atacama Desert• Hundreds of tributaries

• People live in the plains and valleys• Llanos (tropical grasslands) • Pampas plain

• Lake Titicaca (world’s highest lake: 12,500 ft); Angel Falls

WHO WOULD

WORK WHERE

?

• Abundance of resources (minerals, farmland, et cetera)• Brazil is loaded with natural resources

• Gasohol (sugar alcohol used in gasoline)• Issues with deforestation • Venezuela and oil• Colombia/Brazil and coffee• Bolivia and Ecuador’s oil and gas• Chile’s worlds largest exporter of copper

• Climate’s relation to latitude (L v. H) and altitude (L v. H)• Tropics and rain forest

• Wildlife and canopy (destruction)• Temperate climates (Argentina and Europe)

ENVIRONMENT

CULTURE

• Hispanic v. Latino• Spanish occupation v. Latin heritage

• What happened to the indigenous population?• Murdered, raped, sold into slavery, worked to exhaustion

• An estimated 80%-90% were wiped out and their cultures, too• Some fled to the hills and survived (Peru, Bolivia, Chile)• When there were no more natives to work for Spain, they

brought in slaves (Africans)• The same thing happened in N. America

• Gradual blending of cultures (European, Native, African)• Peninsulares, Criollos, mestizos, mulattoes