98 Fun Facts About South America

Which South American country lost its entire coastline in a 19th-century war?

Bolivia lost its Pacific shore in the War of the Pacific, yet it still keeps a small navy, which patrols its lakes and rivers.

Which river is usually ranked as longer than the Amazon?

The Nile is traditionally ranked first by a small margin, though some researchers who re-measured the Amazon argue that it is really the longer of the two.

Francisco de Orellana is said to have named the Amazon River after what?

The female warriors of Greek myth, the Amazons, came to Orellana's mind after his expedition reported pitched battles with fighting women along the river in the 1540s.

Brazil holds about 60% of the Amazon rainforest; which of these countries shares it?

Colombia's southern tip reaches the Amazon at Leticia, a river port that still cannot be reached by road from the rest of the country.

The Amazon rainforest spans eight countries and an overseas territory of which European nation?

France governs French Guiana as a full French region, so a slice of the Amazon lies inside the European Union and pays in euros; Europe's rockets launch from its coast at Kourou.

A 2013 study estimated that the Amazon rainforest holds about 390 billion of what?

Trees: the study put them at roughly 16,000 species, yet just 227 of those species account for half of all the trees in the forest.

Much of the dust that fertilises the Amazon rainforest blows in each year from which desert?

The Sahara's Bodélé Depression in Chad, the dried bed of an ancient lake, sends phosphorus-rich dust across the ocean, replacing what rain washes out of the Amazon's soil.

Which mammal of the Amazon is famous for its pink colour?

The river dolphin, or boto, gets its blush the hard way: the pink of adult males is thought to be scar tissue from rough play and fights with rivals.

Which is the largest city in the Amazon rainforest?

Manaus, with over two million people, sits where the dark Rio Negro meets the sandy Solimões, which flow side by side unmixed for kilometres; its 1896 opera house was built with rubber money.

Which South American animal, often seen grazing beside rivers, is the world's largest living rodent?

The capybara lives beside water for a reason: when a predator comes near, it dives in and can stay under for up to five minutes.

The Amazon River rises in the Andes of which country?

Peru holds every rival for the river's farthest headwater, from Nevado Mismi to the Mantaro; rising within about 160 km of the Pacific, the water crosses the whole continent to the Atlantic.

Which record do the Andes hold?

The longest continental mountain range in the world crosses seven countries; it was pushed up where the Pacific's Nazca Plate slides beneath South America, a collision that still brings earthquakes and eruptions.

Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas, is in which country?

Argentina's Mendoza Province holds the peak; Swiss guide Matthias Zurbriggen reached the top alone in 1897, sent on ahead by the expedition's leader, who never made the summit himself.

Angel Falls, the world's tallest uninterrupted waterfall at 979 metres, is in which country?

Venezuela's Canaima National Park holds the falls, which plunge off the Auyán-tepui table mountain; they are named after Jimmie Angel, an American pilot who crash-landed on top in 1937.

Lake Titicaca, often called the world's highest navigable lake, sits on the border of which two countries?

Bolivia and Peru share the lake, high on the Altiplano; its first steamship was built in England in 1862 and carried up from the coast in pieces on the backs of mules.

The Uros people of Lake Titicaca live on floating islands made from what?

Layers of totora reed, a buoyant sedge, rot from below and must be topped up constantly, so the islands are always being rebuilt.

Machu Picchu is believed to have been built around 1450 as an estate for which Inca emperor?

Pachacuti, the ninth Sapa Inca, is credited with commissioning it as a royal estate; Hiram Bingham brought it to world attention in 1911 while hunting for the lost city of Vilcabamba.

The Galápagos Islands, which Darwin visited aboard HMS Beagle in 1835, belong to which country?

Ecuador annexed the islands in 1832, three years before Darwin arrived; Europeans had found them by accident in 1535, when a bishop's ship drifted off course on its way south from Panama.

The Galápagos Islands are named after which animal?

The giant tortoise: 'galápago' is an old Spanish word for tortoise, and Spanish sailors named the islands for the huge animals they found there; the archipelago was among the first World Heritage Sites, in 1978.

Easter Island, famous for its moai statues, has belonged to which country since 1888?

Chile annexed the island in 1888, though it lies about 3,500 km off the Chilean coast; the navigator Jacob Roggeveen named it after sighting it on Easter Sunday 1722.

Uyuni in south-west Bolivia gives its name to the world's largest what?

Salt flat: the Salar de Uyuni's crust covers more than 10,000 square kilometres and turns into a vast mirror after rain; beneath it lie huge reserves of lithium that have barely been tapped.

The Iguazu Falls sit on the border between which two countries?

Argentina and Brazil share the falls, which are wider than Victoria Falls yet form no single curtain of water: islands along the rim split the river into some 275 separate falls.

Simón Bolívar, 'El Libertador', was born in 1783 in which city?

Caracas was his birthplace; he went on to free much of the continent from Spanish rule, and one of the new nations, Bolivia, took its name from him.

Which is the only independent country outside Europe where Dutch is the official language?

Suriname went to the Dutch in 1667, when the Treaty of Breda let them keep it while England kept New Amsterdam, today's New York; independence came in 1975.

Which is the only country in mainland South America with English as its official language?

Guyana, a British colony until 1966, was among South America's poorest countries until deepwater oil was found off its coast in 2015.

In which South American country do most people speak Guarani, an official language alongside Spanish?

Paraguay made Guarani an official language in 1992; while most indigenous languages of the Americas gave way to Spanish or Portuguese, Paraguayans kept theirs as a badge of national identity.

Which Colombian city is nicknamed the 'City of Eternal Spring' for its mild climate?

Medellín sits at about 1,500 metres in the Aburrá Valley, which keeps temperatures mild all year; it is Colombia's second-largest city.

Brasília, Brazil's purpose-built capital, was inaugurated in which year?

Inaugurated on 21 April 1960 after just 41 months of building, it follows Lúcio Costa's plan, often likened to an aeroplane, with Oscar Niemeyer designing the main buildings; UNESCO listed it in 1987.

At roughly 3,650 metres, which city is the highest administrative capital in the world?

La Paz is the seat of government, but Bolivia's constitutional capital is still Sucre, which kept the supreme court when the government moved in 1898.

Which national capital lies closest to the equator?

Quito sits just south of the line, yet at 2,850 metres it stays cool all year; a monument on its outskirts, the Mitad del Mundo, marks the equator.

Which city, a centre of Afro-Brazilian culture, was Brazil's colonial capital until Rio de Janeiro took over in 1763?

Salvador, founded in 1549, lost the title after gold and diamond strikes in Minas Gerais made Rio the busier port; its old centre, the Pelourinho, is a World Heritage Site.

Cape Horn was named in 1616 after a city in which country?

The Netherlands' port of Hoorn was the birthplace of Willem Schouten, who rounded the cape in 1616 while seeking a new route to the Pacific that would get round the Dutch East India Company's monopoly.

The first FIFA World Cup, in 1930, was hosted and won by which country?

Uruguay, the hosts, won the final 4-2 at the purpose-built Estadio Centenario in Montevideo; only four European teams made the long sea voyage to take part.

Which 17-year-old forward starred in the 1958 final as Brazil won its first World Cup?

Pelé scored twice in the 5-2 win over Sweden, days after a semi-final hat-trick; Brazil's government went on to declare him a national treasure.

The Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro stands on top of which mountain?

Corcovado, a granite peak about 700 metres high, got its statue after Rio's Catholics petitioned the president for one in the 1920s; the soapstone-clad figure was finished in 1931.

Which huge bird appears on the coats of arms of four South American countries?

The Andean condor spreads its three-metre wings on the arms of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Ecuador; one tracked bird soared for five hours without a single flap.

Which South American snake is the heaviest in the world?

The green anaconda is far bulkier than even the longest pythons; it lies in the water with only its eyes and nostrils showing, then seizes its prey and crushes it in its coils.

How were the Nazca Lines of southern Peru made?

Removing dark pebbles to expose lighter ground gave the lines their contrast, since rust-red surface stones hide pale subsoil; with almost no rain or wind to erase them, figures such as a hummingbird and a monkey have survived.

The tango originated in the 1880s along which river, the natural border between two countries?

The Río de la Plata separates Buenos Aires from Montevideo, and the two countries on its banks jointly put tango on UNESCO's heritage list in 2009; its signature instrument, the bandoneón, is a German concertina.

Rio's Carnival is held each year in the days just before which Christian season?

Lent's weeks of fasting begin on Ash Wednesday, so Carnival is the last blowout before them; the word itself is thought to come from a phrase meaning to take meat away.

Settlers who reached Patagonia aboard the Mimosa in 1865 founded towns where which language is still spoken?

Welsh: the 153 settlers wanted a colony beyond the reach of English, and Chubut towns such as Gaiman and Trelew still hold eisteddfods every year.

Patagonia's name comes from Magellan's term for the local people, whom his crew believed to be what?

Giants, reported Magellan's chronicler Antonio Pigafetta, who wrote that the Europeans' heads reached only to a Tehuelche man's waist; the Tehuelche were tall, but not that tall.

Which crop, now a staple worldwide, originated in the Andes?

The potato was first grown in the central Andes thousands of years ago; Spanish colonisers took it to Europe in the sixteenth century, where a blight in the 1840s brought on the Great Irish Famine.

Caral, among the Americas' oldest cities, thrived while what was being built?

The Great Pyramid rose at Giza some 4,500 years ago, just as Caral flourished on South America's desert coast; diggers at Caral have found no weapons, battlements or other signs of war.

The Inca Empire's Quechua name, Tawantinsuyu, means 'the land of the' what?

Four regions, or suyus, met at Cusco, the capital from which the empire was ruled from 1438 to 1533; it linked as many as fourteen million people across nearly a hundred ethnic communities.

Brazil's 'Golden Law' of 1888, signed by Princess Isabel, abolished what?

Slavery ended at a stroke, with no compensation for the owners; the law cost the crown the planters' support, and a coup toppled the monarchy the following year.

Which Portuguese royal house escaped Napoleon's invasion by fleeing to Brazil?

Braganza: Prince Regent João and the court sailed from Lisbon in November 1807 under British escort and reached Brazil in early 1808, making Rio the seat of the Portuguese empire until 1821.

By the Ipiranga stream in 1822, Dom Pedro cried 'Independence or' what?

Death: 'Independência ou morte!' is said to have been the cry of the Portuguese king's own son, who had been left behind as regent; he was crowned Emperor Pedro I of Brazil that December.

Which semi-aquatic South American mammal, able to weigh more than 60 kg, is the largest living rodent?

Capybara herds live beside rivers and lakes across most of the continent. The animals are superb swimmers and can hold their breath underwater for up to five minutes.

Which African animal has bred wild along Colombia's Magdalena River since escaping a drug lord's private zoo?

Hippopotamus numbers there grew from four animals that Pablo Escobar imported in 1981. Left to roam after his death in 1993, the herd has since multiplied to well over a hundred.

Which climate pattern did Peruvian sailors name for the warm ocean current that arrived around Christmas?

El Niño is short for El Niño de Navidad, 'the Christmas boy', a nod to the newborn Christ. It returns every two to seven years and can shift rainfall around the globe.

Which South Atlantic archipelago, known in Spanish as Las Malvinas, was fought over in a ten-week war in 1982?

The Falklands were seized by Argentina's military government in April 1982 and retaken by a British task force 74 days later. The defeat hastened that government's downfall.

Which pope, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina, became the first pontiff from Latin America in 2013?

Francis was also the first Jesuit pope and the first born or raised outside Europe since the 8th century. As a young man he had worked as a bouncer and a janitor.

Which small animal, kept as a pet elsewhere, is a traditional roast dish known as cuy in the Andes?

Guinea pig was domesticated for its meat in the Andes as early as 5000 BC. One famous Last Supper painting in a Peruvian cathedral shows Christ and the disciples dining on it.

Which footballer scored both the 'Hand of God' goal and the 'Goal of the Century' against England in 1986?

Diego Maradona scored the two goals four minutes apart in a World Cup quarter-final. He said the first came 'a little with the head of Maradona and a little with the hand of God'.

Which mammal of South America's rainforests grows green algae in its fur as camouflage?

Sloth fur has grooved hairs that host the algae, along with moths found nowhere else. Three-toed species climb down to the ground only about once a week, to relieve themselves.

Which Ecuadorian volcano's summit is the farthest point from Earth's centre, thanks to the equatorial bulge?

Chimborazo stands 6,263 metres above sea level, more than 2,500 metres lower than Everest. But the planet is fattest near the equator, which pushes its peak farther out into space.

Ushuaia, often called the world's southernmost city, is capital of a province named after which archipelago?

Tierra del Fuego, the 'Land of Fire', is said to owe its name to the many fires Magellan's expedition saw burning along the shore in 1520. Two countries have shared the islands since a boundary treaty of 1881.

Which floodplain south of the Amazon, mostly submerged each rainy season, is the world's largest tropical wetland?

The Pantanal takes its name from the Portuguese word for swamp. Roughly 80% of its floodplains go underwater in the rains, feeding a dense array of wildlife.

Which South American lake is lit by the Catatumbo lightning, storms that flash for hours over one river mouth?

Lake Maracaibo's storms gather where the Catatumbo River enters the water. Colonial-era sources call the glow the Lighthouse of Maracaibo, because sailors could steer by it.

Which dam on the Paraná River, shared by Brazil and Paraguay, drowned the mighty Guaíra Falls when it filled?

Itaipu Dam was built jointly after a 1973 treaty, and its construction displaced about 10,000 families. It remains one of the largest hydroelectric plants on Earth.

Which Brazilian metropolis, home to the world's largest Japanese diaspora, is South America's most populous city?

São Paulo overtook Rio de Janeiro as Brazil's biggest city in the mid-20th century. Its Japanese community dates from 1908, when the first workers arrived for the state's coffee plantations.

Which Rio de Janeiro beach district is named after a chapel's replica statue of Bolivia's patron saint?

Copacabana is first of all a lakeside pilgrimage town high in the Andes. Rio's district took the name after a chapel was built there to house a copy of the town's revered Virgin.

Which currency is used in French Guiana, the South American territory that launched the James Webb Space Telescope?

The euro is legal tender there because French Guiana is an overseas department of France and part of the European Union. Its spaceport at Kourou sent the telescope up in 2021.

Which stormy body of water between Cape Horn and Antarctica is named after an Elizabethan English privateer?

Drake Passage carries the Englishman's name, yet Spanish maps call it the Sea of Hoces, after a navigator thought to have been blown into it in 1525, decades before Drake sailed.

Which long-distance road system is broken only by the Darién Gap, roadless jungle on the Panama–Colombia border?

The Pan-American Highway stops at Yaviza and resumes roughly 106 km away at Turbo. Marshland, jungle and opposition from environmental and indigenous groups have kept the gap unpaved.

Which Andean city, said to be laid out in the shape of a puma, was the capital of the Inca Empire?

Cusco astonished the first Spaniards with the beauty of its buildings and its long, regular streets. UNESCO declared the whole city a World Heritage Site in 1983.

Which Inca emperor offered a room filled with gold as ransom, only to be executed by the Spanish in 1533?

Atahualpa promised to fill the room once with gold and twice with silver within two months. The Spanish took the treasure, then accused him of treason and garrotted him anyway.

Which system of knotted cords did the Inca use to record taxes and census counts without writing?

Quipu cords stored numbers in a decimal system, with a knot's position on the cord setting its value. After the conquest many were destroyed by the Spanish as idolatrous.

Which Argentine general crossed the Andes in 1817 to free Chile and later became Protector of Peru?

José de San Martín left the final campaign to Bolívar after the two met behind closed doors at Guayaquil in 1822. He then resigned his command and moved to France.

Which 1494 agreement split newly found lands between Spain and Portugal, handing the Portuguese the coast of Brazil?

Tordesillas moved the Pope's dividing line 270 leagues further west. That put the eastern bulge of the continent on Portugal's side, which is why Brazilians speak Portuguese today.

Which Bolivian city at the foot of Cerro Rico, the 'rich mountain', was the Spanish Empire's main source of silver?

Potosí sits more than 4,000 metres up and once held over 200,000 people. Spanish speakers still say that something precious is 'worth a Potosí'.

Which legend grew from tales of a Muisca ruler who coated himself in gold dust and washed in a sacred lake?

El Dorado means 'the golden one' and at first described the man, not a city. Treasure hunters later tried to drain Colombia's Lake Guatavita in search of his offerings.

Which revolutionary's memoir The Motorcycle Diaries recounts a 1952 journey across South America as a medical student?

Che Guevara set out at 23 on a sputtering 1939 Norton nicknamed La Poderosa, 'the Mighty One'. The trip lasted nine months and covered more than 8,000 km by bike, raft, horse and thumb.

Which Argentine first lady, who died of cancer at 33 in 1952, inspired a hit Andrew Lloyd Webber musical?

Eva Perón was named 'Spiritual Leader of the Nation' by Congress shortly before her death. The musical Evita began as a 1976 concept album and went on to win Broadway's top Tony Award.

On which notorious French Guiana penal colony was Captain Alfred Dreyfus held after his wrongful treason conviction?

Devil's Island gave its name to a French prison system that ran for a century and closed in 1953. Henri Charrière set his bestselling escape memoir Papillon there, though he was never held on it.

Which caffeine-rich infusion, sipped through a metal straw called a bombilla, is Argentina's national drink?

Mate is also the national drink of two neighbouring countries. Its bombilla works as both a straw and a sieve, and was traditionally made of silver.

Which Afro-Brazilian martial art blends kicks and acrobatics with music inside a circle called a roda?

Capoeira is played to the twang of a musical bow called the berimbau. When street capoeira was illegal in Brazil, its players set up their circles beside other outlawed groups.

Which Colombian novelist set One Hundred Years of Solitude in Macondo, a village modelled on his birthplace?

Gabriel García Márquez won the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the novel has sold over fifty million copies. Macondo was mainly inspired by his home town of Aracataca.

Which mellow Brazilian style, born in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1950s, gave the world 'The Girl from Ipanema'?

Bossa nova means 'new trend' or 'new wave' in Portuguese. João Gilberto shaped the style by reducing the beat of a samba percussion band to the strings of one guitar.

Which Brazilian driver won three Formula One world titles with McLaren before a fatal crash at Imola in 1994?

Ayrton Senna was leading the San Marino Grand Prix when he crashed. About three million people turned out for his state funeral, the largest funeral procession in Brazil's history.

Which novel's hero was partly inspired by Alexander Selkirk, a Scot marooned for four years on an island off Chile?

Robinson Crusoe appeared in 1719, a decade after Selkirk's rescue, though Defoe moved the story to the Caribbean. In 1966 the Chilean government renamed the real island after the novel to draw tourists.

Which naturalist, who explored the Americas from 1799 to 1804, gives his name to the cold current off Peru?

Alexander von Humboldt reported measurements of the cold water in 1846, though José de Acosta had found the current some 250 years earlier. It yields nearly a fifth of the world's marine fish catch.

The high Andean borderlands of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile form a 'Triangle' named for which battery metal?

Lithium lies dissolved in brine beneath the region's dry basins. A 2017 estimate put around 54% of the world's reserves inside the triangle.

Which birds have a Galápagos species that is the only one of its kind living north of the equator?

Penguins are thought to have reached the islands on a cold current from the south, and cool water still lets them survive there. The northern tip of Isabela Island just crosses the equator.

Which flightless bird of South America's open plains looks like a small ostrich?

Rhea fathers do the child-rearing: the male incubates from ten to sixty eggs, then charges at any threat to his chicks, even female rheas and humans.

Which Amazon tree product lost Brazil its monopoly after Henry Wickham smuggled seeds out to the British Empire?

Rubber seeds that Wickham shipped out founded plantations in Southeast Asia, ending the Amazon boom. Britain knighted him in 1920 for services to the plantation industry.

In which war of 1879 to 1884 did Bolivia lose its entire coastline and become landlocked?

War of the Pacific fighting began over a ten-centavo tax on nitrate, earning it the nickname Ten Cents War. The victor kept the mineral-rich coast along with territory taken from Bolivia's ally.

Which high plateau of the central Andes, home to Lake Titicaca, is the most extensive on Earth outside Tibet?

The Altiplano averages about 3,750 metres above sea level, only slightly lower than the Tibetan Plateau. Unlike Tibet, it is flanked by massive active volcanoes.

Which Amazon insect, top of the Schmidt sting pain index, is woven into gloves for Sateré-Mawé initiation rites?

Bullet ant stings feel, in Schmidt's words, like walking over flaming charcoal with a nail in your heel. Initiates wear gloves holding 80 of the ants for five minutes or more.

Which Brazilian architect, famed for free-flowing curves, designed the main civic buildings of Brasília?

Oscar Niemeyer said he was drawn to free-flowing, sensual curves like those of his country's mountains and rivers. He also helped design the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Which Yale lecturer, led there by a local farmer in 1911, made Machu Picchu known to the outside world?

Hiram Bingham was hunting for the last capital of the Incas and wrongly took Machu Picchu for it. He later served in the United States Senate until 1933.

Which Colombian painter and sculptor filled his canvases and bronzes with people of plump, exaggerated volume?

Fernando Botero called himself 'the most Colombian of Colombian artists'. His signature look is known as Boterismo, and his sculptures have stood on Park Avenue and the Champs-Élysées.

Which table-top mountains of the Guiana Highlands take their name from a Pemon word for 'house of the gods'?

Tepuis are the remains of a vast sandstone plateau. Their summits are so cut off by sheer rock walls that they hold plants and animals found nowhere else in the world.

Which pre-Inca site near Lake Titicaca is famed for the Gateway of the Sun, carved from a single block of stone?

Tiwanaku grew powerful around the lake between AD 200 and 600, and its society seems to have collapsed around AD 1000. A long drought is one suspected cause.

What name is given to the wandering cattle horsemen who became folk heroes of the Argentine and Uruguayan plains?

Gauchos were migratory horsemen of the 18th and 19th centuries, reputed to be brave and unruly. A hugely popular epic poem of 1872 fixed the figure in the national imagination.

Which Andean crop, called 'mother of all grains' by the Incas, had 2013 declared its International Year by the UN?

Quinoa is not a true grain at all but a pseudocereal related to spinach. It thrives at high elevations, and its seeds are unusually rich in protein.

Which off-road endurance race left Africa over security fears and was held in South America from 2009 to 2019?

Dakar Rally organisers cancelled the 2008 race after security threats in Mauritania. The event kept its name through eleven editions an ocean away, then moved to Saudi Arabia in 2020.