Geography of Peru

Peru is a country located at the west of the South America. It is surrounded by the Ecuador and the Colombia in north, the Brésil in the east, the Bolivia and the Chile in the South and the Pacific Ocean borders all its western part. It occupies a surface of 1 285 220 km ² and have 2 414 km of coasts.

The country is divided into three great zones, themselves divided into 11 écorégions:

the coastal area along the Pacific. It gathers the majority of the inhabitants in big cities like Lima. The zone is wet the winter (fog) even if it rains very little (one speaks about less 2 cm per annum). The landscape desert, is intersected with fertile valleys around rivers which go down from the Sierra.
the Sierra , mountainous area in the middle of the country. this zone of average altitude of 3500 m is mainly made up of the Andes cordillera and high plateaus towards the border with the Bolivia (Lac Titicaca). The Nevado Huascarán, which rises with 6 768 m in the White Cordillera, are the culminating point of the country.

the Amazonia in the east, which occupies a surface of almost 60% of the country (13% of the total surface area of the Amazon forest).

Three catchment areas: The Pacific Ocean, the Lake Titicaca and the river the Amazon. Like 12.000 viola-Andean lakes. In the basin of the Pacific Ocean, a small river of 160 km holds particularly the attention, the Río Rímac, regarded as one of the most important rivers of Peru, not by its flow of water - relatively weak - nor by the size of its basin, but because it supplies in Eau and electricity the Métropole of Lima, where concentrates more than 30% of the population of the country. The water provision of the Peruvian capital is one of the critical problems that the authorities did not manage to solve during the last decades, and each day it becomes - with the demographic explosion - acuter, requiring frequent cuts in the distribution of water.

The climate is tropical in the Amazonian zone , desert and very dryness in the west, in spite of the presence in winter of an omnipresent fog grisâtre on the northern coast. In the Andes the climate is moderate cold (the annual thermal amplitude is rather high: one easily reaches 25° the summer and of the negative temperatures the winter).

Because of this diversity, Peru has splendid landscapes with which a flora and especially a very rich fauna are associated. On the edges of the Peaceful coast, we find strong colonies of birds of sea (Pélican S, Pingouin S,…) and of the marine mammals attracted by the large quantity of fish which goes up towards north with the cold current of Humboldt. Terrestrial fauna is it also typical with all the species of camélidés (LAMA S, Alpaga S, Guanaco S and Vigogne S), without speaking about the thousands of species whose majority, still unknown factors, live in the jungle.

The country is prone to the earthquakes. The Flood S and landslides (the huaycos ) must with the marine current El Niño. This one, by heating water of the ocean during the southern winter, causes a cyclic and unforeseeable climatic phenomenon which results in intense falls of rain. The activity Volcano ic, observable in the south of the country, is currently not very important but catastrophic eruptions already occurred in the past like that of the Huaynaputina in 1600.

Among the natural resources, one finds the Cuivre, the money, the Or, the Pétrole, the iron ores, the coal and phosphates. Fishing constitutes also an important natural resource, because of the cold current of Humboldt rich in fish. The Amazon forest also starts to be exploited, in particular for its wood.

See too

List of extreme points of Peru
List of the Peruvian assembly lines
central volcanic Zone of the Andes

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