50 Fun Facts About South America

How many sovereign countries are there in South America?

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela. French Guiana is part of France, not a country.

The Amazon River carries roughly what share of all the river water flowing into the world's oceans?

Its average discharge is about 223,700 cubic metres per second, more than the next seven largest rivers combined.

The Amazon rainforest gets its name from Francisco de Orellana, who borrowed it from what?

His expedition reported being attacked by women warriors on the river in 1542. Whether they were women or long-haired men is still argued.

What percentage of the Amazon rainforest lies within Brazil?

The forest spans nine nations in all. Peru has the next biggest share, followed by Colombia.

The Amazon rainforest spans the territory of how many nations?

Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. It represents over half of all the rainforest left on Earth.

Roughly how many individual trees are estimated to stand in the Amazon rainforest?

They belong to about 16,000 species, though just a few hundred 'hyperdominant' species make up half the trees.

Over half the dust fertilising the Amazon comes from one depression in which desert?

The Bodélé depression in northern Chad is the dried bed of an ancient lake, and its phosphorus-rich dust crosses the Atlantic every year.

About how many insect species live in the Amazon rainforest?

That is one region holding a large fraction of every insect species on the planet, most of them not yet described by science.

Which is the largest city in the Amazon basin?

It sits where the dark Rio Negro meets the sandy Solimões, and the two rivers run side by side unmixed for kilometres. Its opera house was built with rubber money in 1896.

The Amazon represents roughly what share of the rainforest remaining on Earth?

The basin covers about 5.5 million square kilometres, and around 60 indigenous groups within it remain largely isolated from the outside world.

The Amazon River rises in the Andes of which country?

The most distant source is usually placed on Nevado Mismi. The river then crosses the whole width of the continent to reach the Atlantic in Brazil.

The Andes stretch about 8,900 km along the continent's west coast, making them what?

They run through seven countries and hold the world's highest volcanoes, including Ojos del Salado at 6,893 metres on the Chile-Argentina border.

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

It rises to about 6,961 metres in Mendoza Province and is the highest peak anywhere outside Asia. A Swiss guide, Matthias Zurbriggen, made the first recorded ascent in 1897.

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

It plunges off the Auyán-tepui table mountain in Canaima National Park and is named after Jimmie Angel, an American pilot who crash-landed on top in 1937.

What else has the lifeless soil of Chile's Atacama Desert been used for?

In 2003 researchers repeated the Viking landers' life-detection tests on Atacama soil and found nothing. Some weather stations there have never recorded rain.

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

At 3,812 metres it is also South America's largest lake by both area and volume. The Uros people live on floating islands built from layers of totora reed.

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

The buoyant sedge rots from below and has to be topped up constantly, so the islands are rebuilt continuously.

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

The site was brought to world attention by Hiram Bingham in 1911 while he was hunting for a different lost city. Its walls are dry stone, fitted without mortar.

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

They lie about 1,000 km west of the mainland and take their name from the Spanish word for the giant tortoises that live there.

The Galápagos Islands are named after which animal?

'Galápago' comes from an old Iberian word for turtle. The archipelago was one of the very first UNESCO World Heritage Sites, inscribed in 1978.

Easter Island, home to nearly 1,000 moai statues, has belonged to which country since 1888?

The Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen named it on Easter Sunday 1722. The nearest inhabited land is Pitcairn Island, more than 2,000 km away.

The Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is the largest of what in the world?

It covers about 10,582 square kilometres and turns into a giant mirror after rain. Most of Bolivia's lithium, around a fifth of the world's known resources, lies beneath it.

The Iguazu Falls, the world's largest waterfall system, sit on the border between which two countries?

About half the river's flow crashes into the Devil's Throat. The name is Guarani for 'big water', and Eleanor Roosevelt's reported reaction was 'Poor Niagara!'

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

He led what are now Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Bolivia to independence from Spain, and two of those countries are named after him. He died of tuberculosis in 1830.

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

It gained independence from the Netherlands in 1975 and is South America's smallest country by both area and population. About 90% of it is forest, the highest share of any nation.

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

Its name comes from an Amerindian phrase meaning 'land of many waters'. Since oil was found offshore in 2015 it has had one of the fastest-growing economies on Earth.

In which South American country do over 90% of people speak Guarani alongside Spanish?

It is one of the continent's two landlocked countries (Bolivia is the other) and co-owns the Itaipu Dam with Brazil, one of the world's biggest hydroelectric plants.

Which South American country's national flag is unique in having a different design on each side?

The front shows the national coat of arms and the back the seal of the treasury, a lion under a red cap with the words 'Paz y Justicia'.

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

It went up in 41 months to a plan by Lúcio Costa, often likened to an aeroplane or a bird, 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?

Bolivia's constitutional capital is actually Sucre. La Paz also runs the world's largest urban cable-car network beneath the snow peaks of Illimani.

Which national capital lies closest to the equator?

The line runs through the north of the metropolitan area, hence the nickname 'Mitad del Mundo'. In 1978 Quito and Kraków became the first two UNESCO World Heritage cities.

Which city was declared one of the first two UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Sites in 1978, with Kraków?

Its colonial old town is one of the largest and best-preserved in the Americas, sitting 2,850 metres up in the Andes.

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

Dutch sailors Schouten and Le Maire named it Kaap Hoorn after their home port. The waters around it, next to the Drake Passage, are among the most dangerous on Earth.

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

The hosts beat Argentina 4-2 in front of 68,346 people at the purpose-built Estadio Centenario. Only four European teams made the sea voyage.

How many men's FIFA World Cups had Brazil won by the end of 2025, more than any nation?

1958, 1962, 1970, 1994 and 2002. Brazil was also the only team to have played at every World Cup through 2022.

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

The 30-metre figure, made of reinforced concrete and soapstone, was completed in 1931 to a design by French-Polish sculptor Paul Landowski.

The capybara is native to every South American country except which?

The Andes and the Atacama keep it out. Adults typically weigh 35 to 66 kilograms and are close cousins of the guinea pig.

The green anaconda of South America holds which record among snakes?

The reticulated python of Asia is longer. Anacondas are non-venomous constrictors that take fish, deer, caiman and even capybaras.

The Nazca Lines of southern Peru were made between roughly 500 BC and AD 500 by doing what?

The reddish-brown surface stones hide a yellow-grey subsoil. More than 70 of the figures are animals, including a hummingbird, a monkey and a spider.

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

The two countries jointly got it onto UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2009. Its defining instrument, the bandoneón, is a German-made concertina.

The Rio Carnival, held every year before Lent, first took place in which year?

Today it draws about two million people a day onto the streets, and the samba schools compete in the purpose-built Sambadrome.

A Welsh-speaking community has existed in Patagonia since 153 settlers arrived aboard the Mimosa in which year?

The colony, Y Wladfa, grew up along Argentina's Chubut Valley, and towns like Gaiman and Trelew still hold Welsh tea houses and eisteddfods.

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

The Tehuelche were tall, but not that tall. The region is shared by Argentina and Chile and includes the peaks of Torres del Paine.

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

Tobacco and tomatoes came from the same region. Andean farmers still grow thousands of potato varieties at altitudes where little else survives.

Which pre-ceramic civilisation built one of the world's first cities around 3500 BC at Huaricanga?

It flourished on the central Peruvian coast at the same time as Egypt's pyramids were rising.

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

Ruled from Cusco from 1438 to 1533, it linked nine to fourteen million people across nearly a hundred ethnic communities.

In which year did Brazil become the last country in the Western world to abolish slavery?

Paraguay had abolished it in 1869 and Suriname in 1863.

Roughly what share of its population did Paraguay lose in the Paraguayan War of the 1860s?

It also lost 40 percent of its territory to Brazil and Argentina in Latin America's bloodiest inter-state war.

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

The move during the Peninsular War reshaped politics across the Spanish and Portuguese colonies.

In which year did Dom Pedro I proclaim the independent Kingdom of Brazil?

Portugal accepted the split diplomatically in 1825, and the kingdom became the Empire of Brazil.