Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
6,883,000 square miles (about 18 million square km), South America is the world's fourth-largest contin-
ent, with almost 12 percent of the earth's land surface. South America's 302 million people live in twelve
independent republics and one colonial-era holdover (French Guiana). And even though it seems that the
population density is comparatively low, South America is intensely urban, because much of the contin-
ent is either inaccessible or can't be farmed because of its two most prominent geographical features, the
Andes Mountains and the Amazon rain forest.
The Andes Mountains run for approximately 4,500 miles along almost the entire western, or Pacific,
coast of South America, more than three times the length of the American Rockies. Passing through
seven of South America's twelve republics—Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and
Venezuela—the Andes are second only to the Himalayas in terms of average height. (The other South
American republics are Brazil, Guyana, Paraguay, Suriname, and Uruguay; French Guiana is the last re-
maining European possession on the continent.) Cerro Aconcagua, the western hemisphere's tallest peak
at 22,834 feet (6,960 meters), is in the Andes near Argentina's northwest border with Chile. In Chile, a
slender thread of country 1,800 miles long, the Andes Mountains cover one third of the land, making much
of the country unfarmable. Chile is home to a large, mineral-rich desert, the Atacama, and also claims the
world's southernmost city, Punta Arenas.
Hidden in the Peruvian Andes for almost five hundred years was the mystery of Machu Picchu, once
a great Incan city. Lords of an extensive and highly centralized empire, the Incas (also the title of the em-
pire's ruler) held territory that extended 3,000 miles from north to south along a 250-mile-wide corridor
from the Pacific coastal plain to the high Andes. Although they lacked the wheel or writing, the Incas were
master builders, with an elaborate system of roads and cable suspension bridges that allowed messengers
to travel as much as 150 miles per day. The Inca system of terraced farms not only produced ample food
but controlled erosion of the soil on the steep mountainside farmlands—techniques that are being rein-
troduced after centuries of colonial neglect and governmental mismanagement. Inca architects raised fine
buildings in the capital city of Cuzco, which meant “navel” in the Quechua language of the Incas, another
example of the omphalos syndrome mentioned earlier. Goldsmiths fashioned beautiful objects that imme-
diately caught the attention of the Spaniards who arrived in 1532. Weakened by internal wars, the Incas
fell easy prey to the conquistadors, who brought devastating smallpox.
But their greatest building feat may have been Machu Picchu. Perched high up in the Andes, on a
mountainous crag that drops steeply on every side, Machu Picchu went undiscovered until the American
Hiram Bingham reached it in 1911. In the city, steep stairways lead to granite shrines, marvelously carved
stone temples and houses, terraced walls built without mortar, and huge ceremonial stones. Streets, stair-
ways, and plazas were all laid out in perfect harmony with the contours of the mountaintop. With windows
placed in temples to permit observation of the midwinter solstice, Machu Picchu was thought to be a sac-
red city where the Inca lords and their “Virgins of the Sun” went to worship. Even though the Spanish had
destroyed almost every other vestige of Incan society, Machu Picchu was found almost intact. But its ori-
gins and the reasons for its apparent abandonment remain a mystery.
While some researchers suggest that the site was essentially an estate of an Incan emperor (a
very
elab-
orate getaway spot),
National Geographic
explorer-in-residence Johan Reinhard believes Hiram Bingham
was on the right track more than one hundred years ago. Even if those “sacred virgins of the sun,” sup-
posedly beautiful young women who had “been educated to the service of the temple and ministering to
the wants of the Inca,” were merely an appealing but fanciful legend, Reinhard believes that Machu Pic-
chu was a significant religious site, mostly because of its location. In
Machu Picchu: Exploring an Ancient
Sacred Center
, he called it “sacred geography” because the site is built in a mountainous region that held
great significance in the Inca culture. In his humorous but insightful
Turn Right at Machu Picchu
, Mark
