Click on the country of your choice on the map or on the printed list
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![[Map]](../../images/maps/sa-map.gif)
| For the uncoordinated
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| Argentina | Colombia | |
| Bolivia | Costa Rica | |
| Nicaragua | El Salvador | |
| Ecuador | Peru | |
| Panama | Honduras | |
| Guatemala | Venezuela | |
| Chile | Paraguay | |
| Uruguay | Mexico | |
| Brazil | Dominican Republic | |
| Puerto Rico | Cuba | |
The political borders of modern Latin America have a deep history.
In 1494, the Treaty of Tordesillas between Portugal and Spain drew a vertical line at around 370 leagues (+/- 1770 km) west of the Cape Verde islands off the coast of Africa. Everything to the east was Portugal's, to the west, Spain's.
As Indigenous peoples died or migrated and Europeans kept exploring, the line kept moving west.
The Spanish established colonial cities in the heart of the Aztec and Inka empires,
which became the Viceroyalties of Mexico and Peru. The outlines of future nation-states were in many cases pre-determined by colonial-era Spanish judicial districts called "Audiencias," for example, the Audiencia of Guatemala.
Invasive species -- not just European colonists but pigs, sheep, cattle, horses, and other animals,
as well as plants, took their place and transformed the landscape.
Some (but not all) Indigenous survivors retreated to more inaccessible areas, as did Africans escaping slavery.
Other European powers -- the British, French, Dutch, Scots, Scandinavians, etc. -- challenged the Spanish and Portuguese in the Caribbean and Atlantic, especially. Florida, Cuba, Santo Domingo/St. Domingue, New Orleans, Guyana, Buenos Aires, and Honduras were all fought over and swapped between European powers.
Treaties in the late 1700s gave the area around Río de la Plata to Spain, and most of Amazonia to Portugal.
Also in the 1700s, Spain created new districts that separated New Granada (1739) and Río de la Plata (1776) from Peru. Venezuela (1777) and Chile (1778) became Captaincy Generals. These redrawn internal boundaries proved durable, as seen in maps of the new nation-states in 1830.
Notice that the 1830s maps show Bolivia with an outlet to the sea. This changed during the War of the Pacific (1879-83) between Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. Compare to today.
Links to the online map quizzes (x4) are in D2L-MapResources.
For each quiz, get 100% in under 1 minute, take a screen shot, and submit to the D2L Dropbox.
