Gran Chaco

The Gran Chaco (Quechua chaqu, "hunting land"), dubbed by some as "the last South American frontier", is an arid, sparsely populated, very hot, semi-desertic, lowland region of the River Plate basin, divided between Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and a small portion in Brazil called Mato Grosso. It is about 647,500 square kilometres in size, though estimates differ, and located west of the Paraguay River and east of the Andes in Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina. It stretches from about 17° to 33° South latitude and between 65° and 60° West longitude, though estimates differ in this case too. Closer to the mountains in the west, the Alto Chaco, is very dry and sparsely vegetated, but going eastward to the Bajo Chaco one encounters lots of thornbrush jungle with quebracho trees and grassy clearings with a wealth of insects. The landscape is mostly flat and slopes at a 0.04 degree gradient to the east.

External links

• The National Museum of Natural History's description of Gran Chaco
• Chaco ecoregion (World Wildlife Fund)
• Food and Agriculture Oranization of the United Nations' description of the Gran Chaco - focuses mainly on agriculture.
• Some stamps showing the dispute over the Gran Chaco before the war - some people claim this was the spark that ignited the war