| The Continent of South America | |
|---|---|
 | |
|
Area |
17,840,000 km2 (6,890,000 sq mi) |
|
Population |
387,489,196 (2011, 5th) |
|
Population density |
21.7 per km2(56.0 per sq mi) |
|
Demonym |
American, South American |
|
Countries |
12 |
|
Dependencies |
3 |
|
Main Languages |
Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch |
|
Time Zones |
UTC-2 to UTC-5 |
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Largest cities |
São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Lima, Bogotá, Santiago, Belo Horizonte, Caracas, Porto Alegre, and Brasília |
South America is a subcontinent below Central America containing 12 countries, including Brazil and the Amazon Rainforest. It is home to many birds and other animals, including the formerly extinct in the wild Spix's Macaw. South America is full of amazing sandy beaches, rain forests and some dry areas just like the ones found at the Mexican border with the US. These areas are home to many diverse types of wildlife. Although there are many types of birds in the world in places such as Australia, it is widely believed that the American continent, in general, contains the most beautiful range of colored birds.
South America (Spanish: América del Sur, Sudamérica or Suramérica; Portuguese: América do Sul; Quechua and Aymara: Urin Awya Yala; Guarani: Ñembyamérika; Dutch: Zuid-Amerika; French: Amérique du Sud) is a subcontinent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean; North America and the Caribbean Sea lie to the Northwest. It includes twelve countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The South American Nations that border the Caribbean Sea—including Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, as well as French Guiana, which is an overseas region of France—are also known as Caribbean South America.
South America has an area of 17,840,000 square kilometers (6,890,000 sq mi). Its population as of 2005 has been estimated at more than 371,090,000. South America ranks fourth in area (after Asia, Africa, and North America) and fifth in population (after Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America). The word America was coined in 1507 by Cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann, after Amerigo Vespucci, who was the first European to suggest that the lands newly discovered by Europeans were not India, but a New World unknown to Europeans.
Native species in Rio and Rio 2, which live in South America: