South America

South America lies almost entirely in the Southern Hempisphere. Most of its northern part is covered by the Amazon Rainforest - home to Earth's second longest river, the Amazon, the place with the greatest biodiversity on Earth and our planet's lungs. The western part of the continent is dominated by the Andes, world's longest exposed mountain range stretching 7,000 km in length. The most densely populated part of the continent is its Atlantic coast with its immediate hinterland, especially the region stretching from Recife in Northern Brazil to Buenos Aires in Argentina. Linguistically, South America is surprisingly uniform, more than 96% of South Americans speak one of continent's four major languages - Portuguese (more than 50%), Spanish, Quechua and Guaraní. On the other hand there's a great diversity to South American landscapes and cultures: Southern Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina developed under a strong European influence, while the west of the continent (most notably Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador) still cherish the rich legacy of South America's native civilizations. Further up north, in the Amazon Rainforest, there are approximately 400 different indigenous groups, some of which have had only a very superficial contact with the outside world, living in a way which hasn't changed much over the past thousand years. The most visited parts of the continent are the former Brazilian capital Rio de Janerio, arguably the most beautiful city in the world, Argentina's sumptuous capital Buenos Aires, and southern Peru around the city of Cuzco, region renown for its Inca legacy.