South America is the fourth largest continent and more than 400 million people are living there. That might be a small number compared to other continents like Asia or Europe however we still thought it is worth collecting our most amazing fun facts we know about South America. What we have found are 200 incredible facts you definite need to know. If you like that list we can also recommend you one of our books we have published or our YouTube channel so make sure to check them out.
1. Located in Bolivia and Peru Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world. It has a surface elevation of 12,507 feet (3,812 meters).
2. During the funeral procession of Eva Peron in Argentina, in the crowd eight people were crushed to death and 2,000 people were injured.
3. Around the region of the Ecuadorian city of Quito, a large number of the inhabitants suffer from a special form of dwarfism. The genetic mutation which inhibits growth also protects those affected from all forms of cancer and diabetes.
4. Cerro Blanco is the highest sand dune in the world and can be found in in the valley of Nazca, Peru. It stands 3,860 feet (1,100 meters) from base to summit.
5. The Argentine lake duck has the longest bird penis ever measured. With up to 1.4 feet (40cm), it is almost as long as the bird’s body.
6. Brazil is not just the 5th largest country in the world but its total land area also accounts for almost 50 percent of South America.
7. El Alto in Bolivia is the highest city in the world with more than 100,000 inhabitants. More than a million people are living there, and the city is located 13,615 feet (4,150 meters) above sea level.
8. Since it became independent in 1825 Bolivia already has had more than 190 revolutions and coups.
9. Peru is home to the mysterious Nazca Lines, a group of very large geoglyphs only observable from the air. They were created by natives between 500 BCE and 500 CE but only discovered in 1553.
10. During the riots in 2001, Argentina had 5 presidents in 10 days.
11. The Perito Moreno Glacier in Patagonia, Argentina is the third largest reserve of fresh water in the world.
12. Guyana is the only member states of the Commonwealth of Nations in South America.
13. According to a 2007 report, there are at least 70 uncontacted tribes living in Brazil.
14. Chile is home to the Easter Island. It is most famous for its nearly 1,000 monolithic human figures called „moai“. They have been carved by the Rapa Nui people between the years 1250 and 1500.
15. Uruguay is the only country in Latin America situated completely south of the Tropic of Capricorn.
16. The Crist The Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro is not the largest Christ statue in the world. With a height of 108 feet, the Christ the King statue in Poland is ten feet higher.
17. Brazilian natives used ants as wound clamps. They let the ants bite and close the wound with their pincers and then pulled off their bodies. The pincers remained wedged in the body, closing the wound.
18. Ecuador is home to the world’s first and second UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Galápagos Islands were the first one and the City of Quito was the second one. Both have been recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1978.
19. In 2008 scientist were able to link the Russian famine from 1601 to 1603 to the volcanic eruption of Huaynaputina in Peru. It was the largest historical volcanic eruption in South America ever and had significant effects on Earth’s climate leading to decreasing temperatures all around the Northern Hemisphere and causing floods and cold waves in numerous places.
20. Ecuador is home to the Galápagos Islands, an archipelago of volcanic islands. Charles Darwin visited the islands in 1835 and his observations and collections contributed to the inception of his theory of evolution by means of natural selection.
21. In 2009, Uruguay became the first country in the world to have given one laptop and Wi-Fi to every primary school student for free.
22. In Ecuador it is compulsory for all citizens between the ages of 18 and 65 to vote in elections.
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23. Argentina started a state presence in Antarctica already in 1904 an it is now the world’s oldest continuous state presence on that continent.
24. Paraguay is home to the world’s largest rodent. The animal is called Capybara and can grow to 3.48 to 4.40 ft (106 to 134 cm) in length and typically weigh 77 to 146 lb (35 to 66 kg).
25. Although Paraguay has no coastline it has the largest naval unit of any landlocked country in the world.
26. Bolivia is one of just 16 countries in the world with two official capitals. La Paz is the administrative capital of the country and Sucre is the constitutional capital.
27. „Cerro Rico“ is a mountain in Bolivia and is the richest source of silver worldwide. It is estimated that as many as eight million people died in the past 500 years because of the mining of Cerro Rico. Even today, two miners die each week which is the reason that the mountain is also known as „mountain that eats men alive“.
28. If you could dig a deep enough hole in China you would end up in Argentina.
29. Colombia is the only country in South America that has coastlines on both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.
30. Due to its altitude water boils already at 194° F (90° C) in Quito, Ecuador.
31. Medellín in Colombia was once “the murder city of the world” with 17 murders every day in 1991.
32. Suriname is the only country outside of Europe with Dutch as a language of the majority.
33. In 2018, the inflation rate of Venezuela reached 130,060 percent.
34. The Kaieteur Falls in Guyana, South America is the world’s largest single drop waterfall by volume of water flowing over it. It is 741 feet (226 meters) high.
35. In 2008 Ecuador was the first country to recognize the rights of nature in its constitution. Under the law nature is no more treated as property but acknowledge that nature has “the right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles”.
36. An Argentinian farmer honored the memory of his dead wife by creating a guitar-shaped forest.
37. Brazilian prisoners can reduce their sentence by four days for every book they read – up to 48 days per year. However, it is required that the prisoner writes a book report as a proof of reading the book. The idea is to help inmates work towards success so that they can integrate more easily into society after being released.
38. With 673,238 registered Italians residing in the country Argentina has the largest Italian population outside of Italy.
39. In 1949 the book “The War of the Worlds” by H. G. Wells was broadcasted via radio in Quito, Ecuador. The people listening to the show were thinking that this fictional story of aliens arriving on Earth was real, leading to a panic in the city. After it was revealed that the broadcast was fiction, the panic transformed into a riot resulting in at least seven deaths and the radio station was burned down.
40. With 18 public holidays Colombia has the fourth highest number of public holidays in the world. Only Cambodia, Sri Lanka and India have more public holidays.
41. The Andean condor is the largest living land bird capable of flight and is native to Peru’s Andes mountain range. It has a maximum wingspan of ten feet ten inches (3.3 meters) and weight up to 33 pounds (15 kilogram).
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42. In June 2012 Ecuador granted political asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. In January 2018 Ecuador even granted him the Ecuadorian citizenship, but this was suspended in 2019.
43. Of Chiles 5,100 species of flora and fauna more than 2,500 can be found nowhere else on Earth.
44. The Colombian river “Caño Cristales” is commonly called the “River of Five Colors” or the “Liquid Rainbow” as it appears in five different colors which are caused by a special type of plant living on the riverbed.
45. Puya raimondii, also known as queen of the Andes, is the tallest flowering plant in the world. It is native to the high Andes of Peru and Bolivia and can reach up to 50 feet (15 meters) in height.
46. The Argentinian Emilio Palma was the first documented person born on the continent of Antarctica. In 1978 his father was head of the Argentine Army detachment at the Esperanza Base in Antarctica and his mother was airlifted to that base, in order to complete her pregnancy there. Since then ten more people have been born in Antarctica however Palma’s birthplace remains still the southernmost.
47. Pablo Escobar – the world’s biggest drug lord – had so much cash that he had to spend 2,500 dollars a month on rubber bands that held his money together.
48. The Gran Torre Santiago tower in Santiago de Chile is the tallest building in South America. It measures 984 feet (300 meters) in height making it also the fourth-tallest building in the southern hemisphere.
49. Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside Japan. In 2009 there were approximately 1.6 million people of Japanese descent living in Brazil.
50. In 2008, a Brazilian tied 1,000 balloons to a chair and flew into the air. Two weeks later his corpse was found in the sea.
51. Maria and José are the most common names in Brazil. There are more than five million males named Jose and more than 11 million females named Maria.
52. Bolivia is named after Simón Bolívar, a Venezuelan leader in the Spanish American wars of independence. The country was originally named „Republic of Bolívar“ however it was later changed to just Bolivia.
53. The Atacama Giant in Chile is the largest prehistoric anthropomorphic figure in the world. The anthropomorphic geoglyph is located in the Atacama Desert, Chile and has a length of 390 feet (119 meters).
54. The world longest meat hot dog was made in Paraguay in 2011. It measured 669 feet (203.8 meters) and weighed 260 lb (120 kg).
55. The National University of San Marcos in Lima, Peru was chartered on May 12, 1551 and is the oldest officially established university in the Americas.
56. Up until 2003 the average height of a women in Bolivia was just four feet eight inches (142.2 centimeters) which is short enough to be considered as a dwarf (four feet ten inches).
57. Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the world’s highest coastal mountain range. Scientist have found out that during the last 170 million years it has moved 1,367 miles from Peru into the territory of Colombia.
58. Suriname is the smallest country in South America.
59. Found in Chile the “Chinchorro mummies” are the oldest artificially mummified human remains ever discovered. The oldest Chinchorro mummy found dates from around 5050 BC.
60. In 2010, Venezuela decided to introduce stricter naming restrictions. Previously, unusual first names were no problem. For example, there are two people with the first name “Superman” living in the South American country – Superman Gonzalez and Superman Fernandez. There are even 60 babies who were given the first name Hitler.
61. On 14 May 1939, Lina Medina from Peru gave birth to her first child at the age of five years and seven months. To this day, she is considered the youngest mother ever. When her parents took her to the hospital, the doctors first thought she was suffering from a tumor. The father of the baby is unknown.
62. The longest street in the world connects Alaska with the south of Argentina. It has a length of approximately 18,641 miles and crosses 17 states, six time zones and four climate zones.
63. Colombia is home to pink dolphins. It is one of the unique animals that can only be found in Colombia.
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64. In Sao Paulo there is a bar called “Bar do Bin Laden” and is an Osama Bin Laden themed bar. The owner of that bar is dressed as Osama Bin Laden and you can pose next to him with fake bombs.
65. Chile is the world’s longest country from north to south measuring at 2,653 miles (4,270 kilometers).
66. Chile has the largest permanent civilian settlement on the continent of Antarctica. It is called Villa Las Estrellas and it has a summer population of 150 and a winter population of 80.
67. Uruguay’s official national motto is “Libertad o Muerte” which means “Liberty or Death”.
68. Ecuador is named after the equator which runs through the country making it the only country in the world named after a geographical feature.
69. Although most people think that Rio de Janeiro is the capital of Brazil it’s not. Brasilia is the capital and was built in just 41 months beginning in 1956.
70. The name “Guyana” derives from the word “Guiana” which was the original name for the region that formerly included Guyana, French Guiana, Suriname and parts of Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia. It means “Land of Many Waters”.
71. In 1997 Rosalía Arteaga became the first female President of Ecuador but only served for two days after she got sworn out by the Congress and the army of Ecuador.
72. 13 percent of the Amazon rainforest are located in Peru. With more than 60 percent the largest part is located in Brazil.
73. Peru is one of the few countries in the world where dolphins are eaten as a delicacy. Other countries or places in the world are Solomon Islands, the Faroe Islands and Japan.
74. With a leg span of up to 30 centimeters, Theraphosa blondi is the largest tarantula species in the world. It occurs exclusively in the tropical rainforests in northern Brazil, Venezuela, Guiana and Suriname.
75. Uruguay is one of only two countries in Latin America where abortion is legal on request. The other country is Guyana.
76. The earliest plants to have colonized land have been found in Argentina. Scientists believe that these plants had appeared as early as 472 million years ago.
77. Located in South America the Andes Mountains is the world’s longest mountain range. It is about 4,300 miles (7,000 km) long.
78. Due to its extreme dryness, the Atacama Desert in Chile is one of the best environments on Earth to recreate conditions on Mars. Even NASA Mars rovers are tested there.
79. Brazil is the only country in South America that speaks Portuguese.
80. Brazil is home to the largest population of Catholics. Approximately 120 million Catholics are living there.
81. Colombia has the most species of butterflies in the world. One out of every five butterfly species is found there.
82. Houses in Uruguay are not marked with numbers as in other countries but instead are all having their own specific name.
83. Argentina is the fifth largest producer of wine in the world.
84. Lionel Messi’s hometown in Argentina banned parents from naming their children “Messi” as it became too confusing for people and also the government with so many children already named after the soccer player.
85. Brazil shares a border with all South American countries except for Chile and Ecuador.
86. The longest surfing waves can be found in Peru. Given perfect weather conditions waves can be as long as 2.5 miles (four kilometer).
87. During the 18th century, Bolivia was only known as Upper Peru.
88. On 24 February 1891, the “United States of Brazil” were founded, and the name of the country lasted for almost 40 years. So at the time, the American continent was home to not only the USA, but also the USB.
89. Almost 90 percent of all alpacas worldwide live exclusively in Peru.
90. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, totaling 300 billion barrels.
91. The only Olympic gold medals Uruguay has ever won are for soccer at both the 1924 and 1928 Olympics.
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92. Brazil is the largest coffee producer in the world. In 2016, they produced more than 2.5 million metric tons of coffee beans.
93. Suriname and Guyana are the only two countries in South America with left-hand driving.
94. The easternmost point of Brazil is closer to Africa than the westernmost point of Brazil.
95. A bite of the Brazilian wandering spider can cause men an erection that lasts for hours.
96. In the Brazilian prison of Santa Rita do Sapucaí, inmates can ride stationary bicycles to generate electricity for the city’s inhabitants. For every 24 hours of cycling, their detention time is shortened by one day.
97. The „Palacio de Sal“ is a hotel in Bolivia built out of salt blocks.
98. Peru holds the world record for the highest number of birds sighted in one place and the greatest number of birds seen in a single day. They were recorded in 1982 in the Parque Reserva Nacional de Manú and Reserva Nacional de Tambopata.
99. The country of Uruguay is named after the largest river of the country – the Río Uruguay. The name of the river is the Spanish interpretation of the Guaraní language word the inhabitants of the region used for it and means “river of the painted birds”.
100. In Argentina, major political parties have their own brands of beer.
101. With a depth of 10,700 feet (3,270 meters) the Colca Canyon in southern Peru is the second deepest canyon in the world. Only the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon in China is deeper.
102. Iquitos in Peru is the largest city in the world not accessible by road but only by plane or ship. It is located in the Amazon rainforest and more than 470,000 people are living there.
103. Human settlement in Brazil is thought to have begun at least 11,000 years ago.
104. Since 2013, every citizen of Uruguay is allowed to buy 40 grams of marijuana at a pharmacy for their own personal use. Due to the good price of one dollar per gram, as specified by the state, many former drug lords have left the now unprofitable drug business.
105. The highest point in Uruguay is Cerro Catedral at just 1,684 feet (514 meters) above sea level.
106. Bolivia has a 1,800-man naval unit, although the country has no access to the open sea at all.
107. In 1913 Argentina was the tenth richest nation in the world in terms of per capita income. Now it’s only the 54th.
108. The world’s largest earthquake ever recorded took place in Chile on May 22nd, 1960. It was assigned a magnitude of 9.5 and is known as the “Great Chilean Earthquake”.
109. The Inca people did not have a formal system of writing but were instead using a system of cotton or camelid fiber strings known as “Quipu”. They used the fiber strings for collecting data, keeping records, monitoring tax obligations or collecting census records. Each Quipu was different in color or size representing information like taxes, debts or other measures.
110. The city of Ushuaia in Argentina claims to be the southernmost inhabited city in the world. Only Puerto Williams and Puerto Toro in Chile are more southern but do not have enough inhabitants to be considered as city.
111. The Catatumbo lightning over Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela is an atmospheric phenomenon occuring on average at 150 nights a year. They last between eight to ten hours and are the largest natural lightning bolts on the planet. Up to 280 flashes can occur in one hour.
112. With more than 4,000 airports Brazil has the second highest number of airports by country. Only the US have more airports.
113. La Paz in Bolivia is the highest administrative capital in the world. It stands at an altitude of 11,940 feet (3,640 meters) above sea level.
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114. Around 60 percent of the Amazon Rainforest is located in Brazil.
115. Vinicunca is a mountain in the Peruvian Andes and due to the specific mineralogical composition of that mountain it is striped in seven different colors. It is therefore also known as Rainbow Mountain.
116. The drug lord Pablo Escobar had so much cash in his home that rats ate about a billion dollars of his wealth per year.
117. Over 50 percent of the amphibian species in Venezuela are endemic to this country.
118. Paraguay is one of only two countries in the world whose flag looks different on each side. The other country is Saudi Arabia.
119. In the early 1980s, Pablo Escobar was responsible for 80 percent of the world’s cocaine production.
120. Star Wars is very popular in Peru. Since beginning of the franchise more than 1,500 people in Peru have been named after a Star Wars character. Until 2017 533 people have been named Leia and 365 have been named Han. Even two people have been named Vader and one was named Skywalker.
121. Venezuelan Carlos Coste holds the record for the longest distance a person has covered underwater with just one breath. It took him three minutes and five seconds to do it.
122. In Chile wives and husbands do not share the same last name. Instead wives keep their maiden names.
123. The origin of the word “Chile” is still unclear. Some people think it derives from the Native American word “chilli” which may mean “where the land ends” but others think it may come from a valley in Peru close to Chile named “Chili”.
124. Sao Paulo in Brazil has the largest economy by GDP of any city in the Southern Hemisphere and even 11th overall. It’s larger than the GDP of Sydney, Melbourne or Jakarta.
125. Howler monkeys, found in Argentina’s rain forests, are widely considered to be the loudest land animal in the world. Their vocalizations can be heard clearly for three miles (4.8 kilometers).
126. The name “Argentina” derived from the Latin word “argentum” which means silver. Early European settlers believed that the country was full of silver, and there even was a legend spreading in Spain about a mountain made of silver in Argentina.
127. The Argentinian Francisca Rojas was the first criminal found guilty through fingerprint evidence in the world. A bloody fingerprint left on her door was used to match Francisca Rojas to the killing of her two children.
128. Argentina is known for being the country with the most psychologists per capita in the world. It even has its own psychoanalytic district called “Ville Freud”.
129. In 2017, Venezuela’s capital Caracas was the most dangerous city in the world.
130. Uruguay is the only country in South America which is entirely outside of the tropics.
131. Peru‘s name may be derived from the word „Birú“, the name of a ruler in the Peruvian region in the 16th century.
132. The former president of Uruguay – José Mujica – earned a monthly salary of 12,000 US-Dollar during his time as president. However, he donated 90 percent of his salary to charities that benefit poor people and earned himself the nickname “the world’s poorest president”.
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133. Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti, the Queen of the Netherlands is Argentinian.
134. The name of the country Colombia is derived from the last name of explorer Christopher Columbus.
135. Caral in Peru is the most ancient city of the Americas.
136. The highest waterfall in the world is Salto Ángel in Venezuela with a height of 3,212 feet (979 meters).
137. The national anthem of Uruguay is the longest national anthem in terms of duration worldwide. It usually takes six minutes to sing it.
138. Ilha Queimada Grande is an island in Brazil that is also known as „Snake Island“. The island is not inhabited by humans but almost only by venomous snakes making it one of the most dangerous places in the world.
139. Although Venezuela is not one of the largest countries in the world, it still has all climates from frosty to very hot.
140. When electricity was scarce in Venezuela in 2016, President Maduro ordered women to stop using hair dryers to save energy.
141. John Paul Stapp was a Brazilian researcher who investigated the effects of speed and acceleration on the human body. During an experiment carried out in 1954, he accelerated to 632 miles per hour before braking completely in 1.4 seconds. During this experiment, he was subject to 46.2 times the force of gravity. To this date, this is the highest acceleration a person has ever voluntarily withstood.
142. Brazil is also home to far more species of primates than any other nation.
143. Brazil is not the main exporter of Brazil Nuts. It‘s Bolivia.
144. From 2015 to 2019, the unemployment rate in Venezuela rose from 7.4 to an estimated 44 percent.
145. Spanish is the official language in Ecuador however there are also 13 indigenous languages recognized by the government as official languages.
146. Public school students in Venezuela usually attend classes in shifts. There is a morning as well as an afternoon shift.
147. The tango was created in Argentina.
148. Although Venezuela has enormous oil reserves, about a third of the population lives below the poverty line.
149. The largest Bolivian prison, San Pedro in La Paz, has developed its own society. There are no guards in the prison, and the prisoners organize all aspects of their lives themselves. There are shops and restaurants run by the prisoners, and at regular intervals the inmates even elect a new leader.
150. Uruguay is the only country whose name in English has the same letter three times in its first five letters.
151. The name “Brazil” is a short form and is derived from “Terra do Brasil”, which means “Land of Brazil”. It was a reference to Brazilwood, a common tree in Brazil in the 16th century.
152. No country has protected a larger part of its area than Venezuela. Around 54 percent of the country is protected.
153. Due to the fact that the equator runs through the country of Ecuador there is almost no change in the length of a day from winter to summer in Ecuador. The Sun almost ever rises and sets at 6 am and 6 pm.
154. Guyana is the only English-speaking country in South America.
155. Every Brazilian citizen between the ages of 18 and 70 is required to vote in the parliamentary elections. Only those who are older than 70 years is allowed to abstain.
156. With an area of 270 square miles (700 square kilometers), Auyan-Tepui in Venezuela is the largest tepui in the world.
157. The small city of Minas in Uruguay has set a world record for hosting the largest barbecue ever.
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158. Ecuador is by far the largest exporter of bananas. In 2018 they were accounting for almost 24 percent of all bananas exported.
159. Venezuela was the first country in the world to abolish the death penalty. It was officially abolished in 1863 and in the 100 years following only 11 other countries did also abolish capital punishment.
160. Argentina was the first country in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage, the second in the Americas, and even the second in the Southern Hemisphere.
161. At 3,324 feet (1,013 meters) in length the swimming pool at the San Alfonso del Mar resort in Algarrobo, Chile was the largest swimming pool by area in the world at the time of completion in 2006.
162. Pudús are the world’s smallest deer and can only be found in Chile and Argentina. They range in size only from 13 to 17 inches (32 to 44 centimeter).
163. The Panama Hat is actually from Ecuador. The name however originates in the 1850s when people from Ecuador emigrated to Panama where they produced and sold these hats at much greater volume as they did before in Ecuador.
164. Heladería Coromoto is an ice cream parlor in Venezuela that offers 860 different types of ice cream and has received an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for that.
165. More than 40 percent of all animals and plants can be found in Bolivia’s tropical rainforests and Pantanal wetlands.
166. The constitution of Bolivia lists 37 official languages.
167. For radio and public television in Colombia it is mandatory to play the national anthem every day at 6 am and 6 pm.
168. The Yasuni National Park in Ecuador is one of the most biologically diverse spots on Earth. In just a single hectare over 100,000 different species of insects can be found there which is roughly the same amount of insect species that can be found in all of North America.
169. There is a festival in Bolivia called „Tinku“ where men fight each other for several days. Usually they just punch each other but in many cases they are also throwing stones on each other. The last day of the festival is considered the most violent and police almost always have to separate the mass of bloody men.
170. „Salar de Uyuni“ is the world’s largest salt flat, at 4,086 square miles (10,582 square kilometers). It is located in southwest Bolivia and almost as large as Jamaica. It contains more than 10 billion tons of salt and it has no more than 40 inches (one meter) variation in altitude.
171. Although his legacy is tied to his role in the Cuban Revolution, Ernesto “Che” Guevara was born in Argentina.
172. The clock on the facade of the building housing the Bolivian congress in La Paz turns anti-clockwise. The government has put this in place in 2014 as a way to encourage people to think differently.
173. La Rinconada is a town in the Peruvian Andes and at 3,200 miles (5,100 meters) above sea level it is the highest permanent settlement in the world.
174. With over 47 million people Colombia has the second largest Spanish-speaking population. Only Mexico is home to more Spanish-speaking people.
175. London has almost three times as many inhabitants as Uruguay.
176. In Brazil, a termite mound was discovered that is probably up to 4,000 years old – almost as old as the pyramids in Egypt.
177. The Titanoboa was the largest snake to ever have lived. The 46-foot-long animal, which weighed more than 1.3 tons, haunted the Colombian rainforest some 60 million years ago.
178. In Bolivia married people are allowed to vote at the age of 18 whereas unmarried people are only allowed to vote when being at least 21 years old.
179. Argentina is currently the third-largest beef exporter in the world after Australia and Brazil.
180. After Brazil and Vietnam, Colombia is the third largest exporter of coffee in the world.
181. The Atacama Desert in Peru is receiving less precipitation than any other desert in the world including the polar deserts. The average rainfall in some locations there is only about 0.04 inches (one millimeter) in a year.
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182. After a 19 year old girl became the three millionth follower of the former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on Facebook, the president gave her a house.
183. At New Year’s Eve, it is common in Venezuela to run around the block with your suitcase if you plan to travel a lot next year.
184. In Venezuela, food and other commodities were particularly scarce in 2015. To be allowed to buy diapers, buyers had to show the baby’s birth certificate.
185. Uruguay legalized same-sex marriage in May 2013. This was even before the U.K. did so.
186. Colombia is by far the world’s largest producer of emeralds. In some years it was even constituting 95 percent to the world production.
187. The Itaipu Dam, situated on the border of Brazil and Paraguay, is one of the largest dams in the world. It covers around 75 percent of the electricity demand in Paraguay.
188. When Christopher Columbus discovered the Orinoco Delta in what is now Venezuela on his third trip to America, he wrote that he had found heaven on earth.
189. Drug baron Pablo Escobar offered Colombia to pay off the country’s entire foreign debt of 20 billion dollars if it did not extradite him to the USA.
190. Based on the Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International Uruguay is the least corrupt country in Latin America.
191. The largest bank robbery in terms of stolen money occurred in August 2005 in Brazil. A gang of up to ten people dug a 256-foot long tunnel in Fortaleza to steal nearly 70 million dollars.
192. In Paraguay, pistol dueling is legal as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
193. The potato originated in modern day southern Peru.
194. Of up to 35,000 orchid species, 25,000 can already be found in the cloud forest of Venezuela.
195. In Venezuela, the homicide rate in 2016 was 91.8 per 100,000 inhabitants. Only El Salvador has a higher rate.
196. The name Venezuela is derived from “Veneziola”. The discoverer Amerigo Vespucci, who visited the region after Columbus, was reminded of Venice (Italian: Venezia) by the stilt houses on the water, so he called it Veneziola (Little Venice).
197. The center line of the football stadium in Macapá, Brazil, is exactly on the equator line, so that the competing teams in a match are always on different hemispheres.
198. As Earth is “thicker” around the Equator than measured around the poles the summit of Mount Chimborazo, Ecuador’s highest mountain, is the farthest point from the Earth’s center. It is therefore also the point on Earth closest to the Sun.
199. From 1822 to 1830 Ecuador was once united with Colombia, Venezuela, Panama and northern Peru as a nation called Gran Colombia.
200. A referee’s call in a soccer match between Peru and Argentina in 1964 led to a riot in which 300 fans were killed.
What do you think about our 200 facts about South America? We hope you enjoyed them as much as we do but let us know if you know even more facts about that continent we should add to our list. We also have many other lists like our best fun facts, the most interesting facts, amazing facts, strange facts or just random facts. Make sure to check them out if you are a facts junky like we are. We also have a dedicated category full of country facts so make sure to check that out if you want to learn more about other countries. You can of course also follow us on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter or Facebook.
General Facts About South America
Apart from be above listed fun facts about South America you might also be interested in some more general facts about that continent. See them here:
| Total Area | 6,890,000 sq mi (17,840,000 km2) |
| Population (2018) | 423,581,078 |
| Largest Country | Brazil |
| Smallest Country | Suriname |
| Total number of countries | 12 |
Last Update: April 23, 2020.