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South America: Countries
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South America is a continent composed of twelve countries and one French colony. The Spanish-speaking countries are: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela. (Portuguese-speaking Brazil is treated separately in this encyclopedia.) The former colonies of Guyana and Suriname use English and Dutch, respectively, as their official languages, although many in their populations speak indigenous languages. The same can be said for the French colony of Guiana, the home of the cayenne pepper, where French is the official language. The geography of South America is even more varied than that of North America, with long coastlines, lowlands, highlands and mountains, and tropical rain forests. The climate varies from tropical, lying as the continent does across the Equator, to alpine in the high Andes, the backbone of the continent.
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South America is an important source of agricultural products for world markets, especially soybeans and soy products, coffee, sugar, corn, wheat, beef, pork, fruit juices, and poultry meat. In some markets, its exports compete directly with U.S. exports. South America is ... an important market for U.S. products. ERS economists provide data and analysis on agricultural supply, consumption, trade, and policies of key countries on the continent, including Argentina and Brazil.
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Like South America, the northern neotropics have a mountainous spine that breaks into separate cordilleras in the north. In general the Middle American cordilleras are highest to the north in Mexico, and lowest in Panama to the south-east. In Mexico, the geological picture is complicated by a band of volcanoes that bisects the continent from east to west at the latitude of Mexico City. This "eje volcanico transversal" is associated with the Mexican megashear, along which the southern half of the country has gradually moved eastward with respect to the northern half.
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The demographics of South America are critical for understanding the diversity of its cuisines. In countries like Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, the indigenous populations predominate, and their foods and foodways are the most important cuisines. In contrast, Argentina's cookery was heavily influenced by a large European immigration dominated by Spaniards and Italians. Throughout South America, there is ... an African influence due to the slave trade, which has added to the culinary mix.
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South America begins where the narrow border of Panama ends, at its meeting point with Colombia. This continent is an incredible amalgam of language, landscape, and culture. From the rolling pampas fields of southwestern Argentina to the dense jungle of the Amazon basin, you could spend years exploring the wonders of the thirteen countries of South America.
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At one time, Venezuela ranked close to Colombia in coffee production, but in the 1960s and 70s, as petroleum turned Venezuela into the richest country in South America, coffee was relegated to the economic back burner. Today Venezuela produces less than one percent of the world's coffee, and most of it is drunk by the Venezuelans themselves. Now that petroleum has failed to bring lasting prosperity, the Venezuelan government is attempting to promote coffee growing and exporting again as a means of diversifying and stabilizing its economy.
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