Portal:Latin America
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 Initiative of America: Idea for a Federal Congress of the Republics (Iniciativa de la América. Idea de un Congreso Federal de las Repúblicas). 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...) Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.
Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rozas y López de Osornio (30 March 1793 – 14 March 1877), nicknamed "Restorer of the Laws", was an Argentine politician and army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confederation. Although born into a wealthy family, Rosas independently amassed a personal fortune, acquiring large tracts of land in the process. Rosas enlisted his workers in a private militia, as was common for rural proprietors, and took part in the disputes that led to numerous civil wars in his country. Victorious in warfare, personally influential, and with vast landholdings and a loyal private army, Rosas became a caudillo, as provincial warlords in the region were known. He eventually reached the rank of brigadier general, the highest in the Argentine Army, and became the undisputed leader of the Federalist Party. In December 1829, Rosas became governor of the province of Buenos Aires and established a dictatorship backed by state terrorism. In 1831, he signed the Federal Pact, recognising provincial autonomy and creating the Argentine Confederation. When his term of office ended in 1832, Rosas departed to the frontier to wage war on the indigenous peoples. After his supporters launched a coup in Buenos Aires, Rosas was asked to return and once again took office as governor. Rosas reestablished his dictatorship and formed the repressive Mazorca, an armed parapolice that killed thousands of citizens. Elections became a farce, and the legislature and judiciary became docile instruments of his will. Rosas created a cult of personality and his regime became totalitarian in nature, with all aspects of society rigidly controlled. (Full article...) TopicsMore did you know -
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Selected article -The Amazon rainforest, also called Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses 7,000,000 km2 (2,700,000 sq mi), of which 6,000,000 km2 (2,300,000 sq mi) are covered by the rainforest. This region includes territory belonging to nine nations and 3,344 indigenous territories. The majority of the forest, 60%, is in Brazil, followed by Peru with 13%, Colombia with 10%, and with minor amounts in Bolivia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, and Venezuela. Four nations have "Amazonas" as the name of one of their first-level administrative regions, and France uses the name "Guiana Amazonian Park" for French Guiana's protected rainforest area. The Amazon represents over half of the total area of remaining rainforests on Earth, and comprises the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest in the world, with an estimated 390 billion individual trees in about 16,000 species. (Full article...) Did you know (auto-generated)
General imagesThe following are images from various Latin America-related articles on Wikipedia.
Selected panoramaPanorama of The Ruins of Sacsayhuamán, a main sight in the City of Cusco, the historic capital of the Inca Empire and Peru. It is a major tourist destination and receives almost 1.5 million visitors a year. Selected pictureCredit: Brad Mering Alpamayo, one of the most conspicuous peaks in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range of the Peruvian Andes. It is a steep, almost perfect pyramid of ice, one of a number of peaks that compose the northernmost massif of the Cordillera Blanca..
CountriesTerritories (in bold), dependencies, and subnational entities of a country not located primarily in Latin America are italicized.
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