North and South America
Geography · Key Stage 2 · The School
Two continents, one landmass
North America holds Canada, the United States and Mexico, plus Central America and the Caribbean; its largest cities include Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles and Toronto. South America holds Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Colombia and Chile, with São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Lima and Bogotá among its largest cities. A narrow land bridge at Panama joins the two.
Mountains, plains and rainforest
The ROCKY MOUNTAINS run down western North America and the ANDES down the western edge of South America — the longest mountain range on Earth. Between them and the eastern coasts lie vast plains: the Great Plains and prairies in the north, the Amazon Basin and the Pampas in the south. The AMAZON is the largest river by volume in the world.
Environmental regions
An environmental region is an area with a shared climate and vegetation. The Americas hold nearly all of them: Arctic tundra in northern Canada, temperate forest and grassland in the middle, hot desert in the south-west United States and northern Mexico, tropical rainforest across the Amazon, and cold desert in Patagonia. That range in one north–south strip is why the Americas are worth studying together.
Which is further east, Miami or Santiago in Chile? On a flat map South America hangs below North America and Miami looks further east. On a globe, follow the lines of longitude: Miami is at about 80° west and Santiago at about 71° west — so Santiago is nearly a thousand kilometres FURTHER EAST. South America sits south and east of North America, which flat maps hide.