Portal:Latin America

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Latin America is a collective region of the Americas where Romance languages—languages derived from Latin—are predominantly spoken. The term was coined in France in the mid-19th century to refer to regions in the Americas that were ruled by the Spanish, Portuguese, and French empires.

The term does not have a precise definition, but it is "commonly used to describe South America, Central America, Mexico, and the islands of the Caribbean". In a narrow sense, it refers to Spanish America and Brazil (Portuguese America). The term "Latin America" is broader than Hispanic America, which specifically refers to Spanish-speaking countries, and categories such as Ibero-America, a term that refers to both Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries from the Americas, and sometimes from Europe.

The term Latin America was first used in Paris at a conference in 1856 called "Initiative of America: Idea for a Federal Congress of the Republics" (Iniciativa de la América. Idea de un Congreso Federal de las Repúblicas), by the Chilean politician Francisco Bilbao. The term was further popularized by French emperor Napoleon III's government of political strongman that in the 1860s as Amérique latine to justify France's military involvement in the Second Mexican Empire and to include French-speaking territories in the Americas, such as French Canada, Haiti, French Louisiana, French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe and the French Antillean Creole Caribbean islands Saint Lucia, and Dominica, in the larger group of countries where Spanish and Portuguese languages prevailed.

The region covers an area that stretches from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego and includes much of the Caribbean. It has an area of approximately 19,197,000 km2 (7,412,000 sq mi), almost 13% of the Earth's land surface area. In 2019, Latin America had a combined nominal GDP of US$5,188,250 trillion and a GDP PPP of US$10,284,588 trillion. (Full article...)

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Guyana sent a team to compete at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. Four representatives of Guyana qualified to take part in the Beijing Games–Adam Harris, Marian Burnett, and Aliann Pompey in track, and Niall Roberts in swimming–and Pompey advanced past the first round in her event, progressing to semifinals. Meanwhile, Alika Morgan (track & field) and Geron Williams (cycling) took part in the Games' Youth Olympics camp, held in Beijing at the same time as the Olympics. Along with coaches and administrative members, Guyana sent a total of ten people to Beijing. The appearance of Guyana's delegation in Beijing marked the fifteenth Guyanese Olympic delegation to appear at an Olympic games, which started with their participation as British Guiana in the 1948 Summer Olympics. There were no medalists from Guyana at the Beijing Olympics. Roberts was Guyana's flagbearer at the ceremonies in Beijing. (Full article...)
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A coffee plantation in Santo Antônio do Amparo, Minas Gerais

Brazil produces about a third of the world's coffee, making the country by far the world's largest producer. Coffee plantations, covering some 27,000 km2 (10,000 sq mi), are mainly located in the southeastern states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo and Paraná where the environment and climate provide ideal growing conditions.

The crop first arrived in Brazil in the 18th century, and the country had become the dominant producer by the 1840s. Brazilian coffee prospered since the early 19th century, when immigrants came to work in the coffee plantations. Production as a share of world coffee output peaked in the 1920s but has declined since the 1950s due to increased global production. (Full article...)
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Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Credit: Luis Argerich

Skyline of the City of Buenos Aires, capital and largest city in Argentina, and the most visited city in South America. This picture shows specifically the district of Puerto Madero.

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Guna woman selling Molas in Panama City
Guna woman selling Molas in Panama City
The mola or molas, forms part of the traditional outfit of a Kuna woman, two mola panels being incorporated as front and back panels in a blouse. The full costume traditionally includes a patterned wrapped skirt (saburet), a red and yellow headscarf (musue), arm and leg beads (wini), a gold nose ring (olasu) and earrings in addition to the mola blouse (dulemor). In Dulegaya, the Kuna's native language, "mola" means "shirt" or "clothing". The mola originated with the tradition of Kuna women painting their bodies with geometrical designs, using available natural colors; in later years these same designs were woven in cotton, and later still, sewn using cloth bought from the European settlers of Panama.

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