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Portal:Latin America

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Latin America refers to a cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily in the form of Spanish and Portuguese (excluding Azores islands), and to a lesser extent, Italian dialects, French (excluding Quebec) and its creoles. There is no precise or official inclusion list. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geography, and as such it includes countries in both North and South America. Most countries south of the United States tend to be included: Mexico and the countries of Central America, South America and the Caribbean. Despite being in the same geographical region, English- and Dutch-speaking countries are sometimes excluded (Suriname, Guyana, the Falkland islands, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, etc.). In a narrower sense, it often refers to Spanish America plus Brazil. Related terms are the narrower Hispanic America, which exclusively refers to Spanish-speaking nations, and the broader Ibero-America, which includes all Iberic countries in the Americas and occasionally European countries like Spain and Portugal.

The term Latin America was first introduced in 1856 at a Paris conference titled, literally, Initiative of America: Idea for a Federal Congress of the Republics (Iniciativa de la América. Idea de un Congreso Federal de las Repúblicas; the original Spanish uses the singular form, América, equivalent to meaning conveyed in English by the plural form, "the Americas"). Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao coined the term to unify countries with shared cultural and linguistic heritage. It gained further prominence during the 1860s under the rule of Napoleon III, whose government sought to justify France's intervention in the Second Mexican Empire. Napoleon III extended the term to include French-speaking territories in the Americas, such as French Canada, Haiti, French Louisiana, French Guiana, and the French Antillean Creole Caribbean islands (e.g., Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Lucia, and Dominica). This broader conceptualization aligned with France’s geopolitical ambitions to categorize these regions alongside the predominantly Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries of the Americas. (Full article...)

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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Sites are places of importance to cultural or natural heritage as described in the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, established in 1972. Peru ratified the convention on February 24, 1982, making its historical sites eligible for inclusion on the list.

As of 2021, Peru has 13 sites on the World Heritage List. The first sites within Peru were inscribed on the list at the 7th Session of the World Heritage Committee, held in Florence, Italy in 1983: "City of Cusco" and the "Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu". Nine sites are listed as cultural sites, two as natural, and two as mixed, meeting both cultural and natural selection criteria, as determined by the organization's selection criteria. The site Chan Chan Archaeological Zone was inscribed to the list in 1986 and immediately placed on the List of World Heritage in Danger as the adobe constructions are easily damaged by heavy rain and erosion. The Qhapaq Ñan, Andean Road System site is a transnational site, also shared with Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador. In addition, there are eight sites on the tentative list. (Full article...)

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Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, warm valleys, high-altitude Andean plateaus, and snow-capped peaks, encompassing a wide range of climates and biomes across its regions and cities. It includes part of the Pantanal, the largest tropical wetland in the world, along its eastern border. It is bordered by Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay to the southeast, Argentina to the south, Chile to the southwest, and Peru to west. The seat of government is La Paz, which contains the executive, legislative, and electoral branches of government, while the constitutional capital is Sucre, the seat of the judiciary. The largest city and principal industrial center is Santa Cruz de la Sierra, located on the Llanos Orientales (eastern tropical lowlands), a mostly flat region in the east of the country with a diverse non-Andean culture.

The sovereign state of Bolivia is a constitutionally unitary state divided into nine departments. Its geography varies as the elevation fluctuates, from the western snow-capped peaks of the Andes to the eastern lowlands, situated within the Amazon basin. One-third of the country is within the Andean mountain range. With an area of 1,098,581 km2 (424,164 sq mi), Bolivia is the fifth-largest country in South America after Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Colombia, and, alongside Paraguay, is one of two landlocked countries in the Americas. It is the largest landlocked country in the Southern Hemisphere. The country's population, estimated at 12 million, is multiethnic, including Amerindians, Mestizos, Asians, Arabs, Jews, and the descendants of Europeans and Africans. Spanish is the official and predominant language, although 36 indigenous languages also have official status, of which the most commonly spoken are Guaraní, Aymara, and Quechua. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various Latin America-related articles on Wikipedia.

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Tatacoa Desert
Tatacoa Desert
Credit: Julien H

The Tatacoa Desert, the second largest arid zone in Colombia after the Guajira Peninsula, is one of the most attractive scenery Colombia and occupies 330 square kilometers of land in ocher and gray brushstrokes of green cactus..

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Hands at the Cuevas de las Manos upon Río Pinturas, near the town of Perito Moreno in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina
Hands at the Cuevas de las Manos upon Río Pinturas, near the town of Perito Moreno in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina
Cueva de las Manos (Spanish for Cave of Hands) is a cave or a series of caves located in the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina, 163 km (101 mi) south of the town of Perito Moreno. It is famous for (and gets its name from) the paintings of hands. The art in the cave dates from 13,000 to 9,000 years ago.Several waves of people occupied the cave, and early artwork has been carbon-dated to ca. 9300 BP (about 7300 BC). The age of the paintings was calculated from the remains of bone-made pipes used for spraying the paint on the wall of the cave to create silhouettes of hands. The site was last inhabited around 700 AD, possibly by ancestors of the Tehuelche people. It was entered on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1991.

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