From the Caribbean to Patagonia Quiz

Answer: Colombia and Venezuela

Though the Guianas (Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana) are occasionally counted as part of Caribbean South America, the only two countries with coasts on the Caribbean Sea are Colombia (which also borders the Pacific Ocean) and Venezuela. The Caribbean region of these two large countries includes both islands and mainland areas. This stunning photo shows the beach at Cumaná, the capital of the Venezuelan state of Sucre, which was the first European settlement in Venezuela, founded by Franciscan friars in 1515. The island nation of Trinidad and Tobago lies about 11 km (6.8 mi) off the coast of Sucre.

Ecuador and Peru are both located on the Pacific coast of South America, as is Chile. Brazil and Uruguay border the Atlantic Ocean, but lie much further south.

Answer: Orinoco

Colombia and Venezuela do not only share the Caribbean region of South America, but also the extensive lowland region simply known as Los Llanos (the plains). This region belongs to the drainage basin of the Orinoco River, which forms part of the border between the two countries. One of the continent's longest rivers, the Orinoco is also the world's third-largest river by discharge, after the Amazon and the Congo. Parts of the Llanos get flooded during the rainy season, turning the grasslands into a temporary wetland - which in the past made the region more suited to cattle herding than agriculture. The Llanos are also noted for their unique wildlife, which includes water birds, caimans, jaguars, and small mammals such as armadillos and capybaras. This beautiful photo shows a detail of the Colombian Llanos.

The Paraná, South America's second-longest river, is found much further south; the Tocantins and the Madeira are both among the largest tributaries of the Amazon.

Answer: cattle ranching

The Amazon basin - the area drained by the Amazon River and its over 1,000 tributaries - extends over an area of over 6 million km² (3,728,227 sq mi) almost from coast to coast of South America, comprising large parts of Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. Most of the basin is covered by the Amazon rainforest, the world's largest, a dense, multilayered expanse of greenery - often referred to as "the lungs of the world" - that hosts thousands of animal species (90% of which are insects). Though, on the whole, this immense region is sparsely populated (with the exception of a few larger cities such as Manaus and Iquitos), human activity has negatively impacted the Amazon basin. Deforestation has occurred and still occurs for a number of reasons, such as the production of charcoal for industrial uses.

However, cattle ranching is by far the main reason why large swathes of the rainforest are being cleared at an alarming rate, not only endangering animal and plant life, but also severely depleting the soil.

Answer: La Paz

The Altiplano, also known as Andean Plateau or Collao, is the area in west-central South America where the Andes (the world's longest mountain range) are at their widest. Most of the Altiplano lies in the landlocked country of Bolivia, and the rest in Peru, Chile and Argentina; Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake, shared by Bolivia and Peru, is also located there. In spite of its high altitude (an average of 3,750 m/12,300 ft), a number of pre-Columbian cultures, the best-known of which was the Inca Empire, flourished in the Altiplano region. The Altiplano is dominated by large active volcanoes to the west, and by the granite mountains of the Cordillera Real (shown in the photo) to the east.

Located at an elevation of about 3,650 m (11,975 ft) above sea level, La Paz is the de facto capital of Bolivia, whose constitutional capital is Sucre. Quito, the capital of Ecuador, is the world's second-highest capital - or the first, if Sucre is considered Bolivia's capital. Both Lima (the capital of Peru) and Santiago (the capital of Chile) lie at much lower elevations.

Answer: Bahia

The Brazilian Highlands (Planalto) cover most of eastern, southern and central Brazil, taking up about half of the huge country's land area (4,500,000 km²/1,930,511 sq mi), and hosting the vast majority of the country's population. Shaped mostly by erosion, the mountains found in this region are nowhere as high as those in the Andes - the highest of them, Pico da Bandeira, standing at an elevation of 2,891 m (9,485 ft). The Brazilian Highlands are divided in three major areas - the Atlantic Plateau (along the coast), the Southern Plateau and the Central Plateau - with a wide range of geological features, biomes and climates. The rugged Chapada Diamantina ("Diamond Tableland"), mostly covered by the xeric shrubland known as "caatinga", lies at the centre of the state of Bahia, in northeastern Brazil. Bahia's capital, Salvador, was the capital of Brazil from its foundation in 1549 to 1763.

The state of Pará is located in northern Brazil, Mato Grosso in the midwest, and Minas Gerais in the southeast.

Answer: swamp

Encompassing an area of nearly 200,000 km² (77,220 sq mi), the Pantanal lies mostly in the midwestern Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul. "Pântano" means "swamp" (and synonyms thereof) in Portuguese: indeed, this region is like a huge internal river delta, into which the rivers flowing from the highlands deposit their sediments.

The Pantanal is a floodplain ecosystem, alternating periods of inundation (flooding during the rainy season) and desiccation (extreme dryness). Its vegetation includes plants typical of the surrounding biome regions, such as the tropical rainforest of the Amazon basin, the shrubland of the Northeast, and the savanna of the central plateaus.

The Pantanal is also home to an incredibly rich wildlife, with hundreds of different bird species, tapirs, anteaters, monkeys and other mammals, and apex predators such as jaguars, caimans and anacondas.

The giant waterlilies shown in the photo are commonly found in the submerged areas of the region, especially in the part closest to the Amazon basin.

Answer: Chile

The Gran Chaco, or Dry Chaco, is a semi-arid lowland region, part of the Rio de la Plata basin, divided among Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil (where it adjoins the Pantanal). The name "Chaco" comes from Quechua (an indigenous language of the Andean region), and means "hunting ground", a reference to the region's abundant wildlife. Located between the Andes and the Paraguay River, the Gran Chaco is as large as its name implies, covering an area of about 647,500 km²(250,000 sq mi). Hot and sparsely populated, the Gran Chaco is a region of high biodiversity, and its different ecosystems host a wide variety of plant and animal species - such as at least ten species of armadillo. Between 1932 and 1935 a war was fought between Paraguay and Bolivia over the oil that was believed to exist in the Chaco Boreal, the northern part of the region (shown in the photo).

Answer: Atacama Desert

Believed to be the world's oldest desert, the Atacama Desert is a plateau that covers an area of 105,000 km2 (41,000 sq mi) on a strip of land over 1,000 km (600 mi) long, located in northern Chile, west of the Andes. The most arid part of the Atacama Desert is sandwiched between the Andes and the Chilean Coastal Range, which produces a two-sided rain shadow. The average rainfall in the Atacama region is 15 mm (0.6 in) per year, though some parts of the desert are believed not to have ever received any rain at all. However, there have been occasional (and quite unexpected) weather events, such as the snowfall of July-August 2011 captured in the photo. Atacama's landscape, characterized by volcanic rocks, sands and salt lakes, has often been compared to Mars or the Moon. While an unexpectedly varied flora has developed in the Atacama region, the desert's extreme conditions limit its animal population to insects, arthropods, reptiles and a few small mammals; penguins and seals are found along the coast. The desert is the largest natural supply of Chile saltpeter (sodium nitrate), though the mines have long been abandoned.

None of the incorrect choices - all known for dry, inhospitable conditions - are located in South America. McMurdo Dry Valleys are in Antarctica, the Great Sandy Desert is in Australia, and the Skeleton Coast in Namibia.

Answer: thunderstorms

With an extension of over 750,000 km² (289,577 sq mi), the Pampas (from a Quechua word meaning "plain") cover a large portion of the southern part of South America. The region's temperate climate, with four distinct seasons, and its fertile soil make it particularly suited to agriculture (including the growing of vineyards), as well as cattle ranching, for which the Pampas are especially famous. Most of the region's vegetation consists of different kinds of grasses, such as the indigenous flowering plant known as "Pampas grass", while trees are rare. Though human activity has impacted the Pampas' unique wildlife, the grasslands are still home to a number of mammal and bird species - such as the rhea, a large ratite related to the ostrich and the emu, the pampas deer, the pampas fox and the puma (cougar).

Rainfall is evenly distributed throughout the year. Intense thunderstorms - caused by very high convective cloud tops - occur mostly in spring and summer, often producing violent hailstorms. Not surprisingly in such a vast expanse of almost treeless plain, lighting is also very frequent, as are tornadoes.

Answer: Welsh

With an area of 1,043,076 km²/402,734 sq mi, Patagonia is larger than most sovereign countries, though only about 2 million people live there. The region's name comes from the word "patagón", a word used by Ferdinand Magellan and its crew for its inhabitants - supposedly giants twice as big as ordinary humans. Most of Argentinian Patagonia consists of steppe-like plains rising in a succession of 13 terrace-like plateaus; the Chilean side boasts more abundant vegetation and wildlife. About 5,000 Welsh speakers live in the Argentinian province of Chubut, where the first Welsh settlement, Y Wladfa ("The Colony"), was established in 1865. The main Welsh-speaking towns in Chubut are Trelew, Gaiman and Trevelin. Patagonian Welsh is recognized as a distinct variety of the language, which belongs to the Brittonic branch of the Celtic family.

This breathtakingly beautiful photo shows the distinctive outline of Monte Fitz Roy (Chaltén), located in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, on the border between Chile and Argentina, in the province of Santa Cruz - continental Argentina's southernmost.