Region Overview

South America, the fourth largest continent, contains a range of very different landscapes. About 60 per cent of the continent is covered in vast, grassy plains. The towering Andes mountains stretch along the west coast, with the long, thin Atacama Desert sandwiched between the mountains and the sea. This is the world's most arid desert, where it hasn't rained for 400 years.

At the heart of South America lies the world's largest rainforest, which grows in the vast basin of the mighty Amazon, the longest river in South America. The Amazon rises high in the snow-capped Andes in Peru, and then flows 6439 km across Peru and Brazil to its mouth in the Atlantic Ocean. At its mouth, the Amazon is so wide that you cannot see from one bank to the other. The river discharges so much water into the ocean that the water is still fresh 180 km out to sea.
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