Rio GrandeCalled the Río Bravo in Mexico. It rises in south-central Colorado, runs about 3,051 kilometers (1,896 miles), and forms the border between Texas and four Mexican states. The drawing cuts it off at the top edge.
Sierra Madre OccidentalThe name means Western Mother Range. It runs along the Gulf of California, and its Copper Canyon is larger than the Grand Canyon and in places deeper.
Sierra Madre OrientalIt runs about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) south from the Rio Grande. Its highest point, Cerro El Potosí, reaches 3,721 meters (12,208 feet).
Mexican PlateauA plateau that averages 1,825 meters (5,988 feet) above sea level. The Sierra Madre Occidental is on its west side and the Sierra Madre Oriental on its east.
Baja California PeninsulaAbout 1,247 kilometers (775 miles) long. It parts the Pacific Ocean from the Gulf of California.
Gulf of CaliforniaAlso called the Sea of Cortés. It is a Pacific Ocean marginal sea, and the Colorado River flows into it.
Gulf of MexicoA marginal sea on the Atlantic Ocean. Its area is about 1.6 million square kilometers. The Yucatán Channel joins it to the Caribbean Sea.
Bay of CampecheIt lies on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec's north side. Campeche, Tabasco and Veracruz, all Mexican states, border it.
Sierra Madre del SurIt runs about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles). It goes from southern Michoacán across Guerrero to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in Oaxaca.
Isthmus of TehuantepecThe shortest way from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. It is 200 kilometers (124 miles) at its narrowest.
Yucatán PeninsulaIt separates the Gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean Sea. About 181,000 square kilometers of low ground, almost all of it porous limestone.
Gulf of HondurasAn inlet of the Caribbean Sea. It lies along the shores of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras. The Belize Barrier Reef lines its inner part.
Lake NicaraguaThe largest freshwater lake in Central America, at 8,264 square kilometers. It drains through the San Juan River to the Caribbean Sea.
Isthmus of PanamaIt links North and South America. It divides the Caribbean Sea from the Pacific Ocean. The Panama Canal, 82 kilometers long, cuts across its narrowest point.
Gulf of PanamaA gulf of the Pacific Ocean on the southern coast of Panama. Panama City stands on its shore, and the Panama Canal connects it with the Caribbean Sea.
The Caribbean 4
Sargasso SeaThe only named sea without a land boundary. Four ocean currents bound it, and it is known for the brown Sargassum seaweed that floats on it.
Greater AntillesThe larger islands of the Caribbean. Among them are Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Jamaica. They make up nearly 90 percent of the land of the West Indies.
Caribbean SeaAbout 2,754,000 square kilometers. Its deepest point, the Cayman Trough, reaches 7,686 meters (25,217 feet).
Lesser AntillesA partly volcanic arc of islands. It runs from the Virgin Islands, east of Puerto Rico, to the coast of Venezuela. It forms the Caribbean Sea's eastern boundary.
South America 29
Lake MaracaiboA brackish body of water of 13,512 square kilometers in Venezuela. A narrow strait joins it to the Gulf of Venezuela. It is sometimes classed as a bay or an estuary rather than a lake.
Magdalena RiverThe main river of Colombia. It flows north for about 1,528 kilometers (949 miles) to the Caribbean Sea.
LlanosThe name is Spanish for the plains. This grassland in Colombia and Venezuela east of the Andes has a rainy season from April to November, when parts of it flood up to a meter deep.
Orinoco RiverAbout 2,140 kilometers (1,330 miles) long. Its basin is 65 percent in Venezuela and 35 percent in Colombia. By the volume of water it carries it is the world's third largest river.
Guiana HighlandsA land of tepuis, flat-topped table mountains. Angel Falls drops 979 meters (3,212 feet) over the edge of one of them, the tallest uninterrupted waterfall in the world.
AndesThe world's longest continental mountain range. It runs about 8,900 kilometers (5,500 miles) through seven countries. Aconcagua, its highest peak, stands about 6,961 meters (22,838 feet).
Amazon BasinThe world's largest drainage basin, about 7,000,000 square kilometers. Most of it is covered by the largest rainforest on Earth.
Amazon RiverThe world's largest river by the water it carries. That is 215,000 to 230,000 cubic meters a second. Whether it or the Nile is the longest is disputed. On this drawing its line starts where the Ucayali River ends.
Ucayali RiverThe Amazon's main headstream. It rises about 110 kilometers north of Lake Titicaca and becomes the Amazon where it meets the Marañón.
Madeira RiverThe Amazon's biggest tributary. It carries about 15 percent of the water in the basin and is about 1,450 kilometers (900 miles) long.
Tocantins RiverAbout 2,450 kilometers (1,520 miles) long, flowing from south to north. It is not a branch of the Amazon, although it reaches the Atlantic beside the mouth of the Amazon.
Mato Grosso PlateauMato Grosso means thick bush. The Pantanal wetland lies to its south.
São Francisco RiverThe longest river wholly inside Brazil. It is 2,914 kilometers (1,811 miles) long. It rises in Minas Gerais, flows north, then turns east to the Atlantic.
Brazilian HighlandsAbout 4,500,000 square kilometers, roughly half of Brazil. Most of the people of Brazil live on the highlands or on the narrow coast beside them.
Lake TiticacaOn the border of Bolivia and Peru at 3,812 meters (12,507 feet). Its area is 8,372 square kilometers. It is often called the world's highest navigable lake.
AltiplanoSpanish for high plain. Outside Tibet, no high plateau on Earth is more extensive, and the bulk of it is in Bolivia.
Atacama DesertThe driest nonpolar desert in the world. It is a strip about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) long with about 15 millimeters of rain a year. Some of its weather stations have never recorded rain.
PantanalThe largest tropical wetland in the world. It covers between 140,000 and 195,000 square kilometers, mostly in Mato Grosso do Sul, a Brazilian state. About 80 percent of its floodplain is under water in the rainy season.
Gran ChacoA semiarid lowland of more than one million square kilometers. It lies across eastern Bolivia, western Paraguay and northern Argentina. It is part of the Río de la Plata basin.
Paraná RiverAbout 4,880 kilometers (3,030 miles) through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. It is second in length in South America only to the Amazon. It and the Uruguay River make the Río de la Plata.
Uruguay RiverAbout 1,838 kilometers (1,142 miles) long, flowing from north to south. It forms parts of the borders of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.
PampasFertile low grasslands of more than 1,200,000 square kilometers. They lie in Argentina, Uruguay and Rio Grande do Sul, a Brazilian state. The name comes from the Quechua word pampa, meaning plain.
Río de la PlataAn estuary formed where the Uruguay and Paraná rivers meet. It is 220 kilometers (140 miles) wide at its mouth. It is part of the Argentina–Uruguay border, with Buenos Aires and Montevideo on its shores.
PatagoniaSouth America's southern end, governed by Argentina and Chile. The Andes run down its west side, and steppes and tablelands fill the east.
Strait of MagellanA passage linking Atlantic and Pacific. It is about 570 kilometers (350 miles) long. The mainland is on one side and Tierra del Fuego on the other. Its name dates to 1520. At its narrowest it is about 2 kilometers wide.
Tierra del FuegoThe western part belongs to Chile and the eastern part to Argentina. The name means Land of Fire, from the many fires that sailors saw along its coast.
Falkland IslandsIslas Malvinas in Spanish. A British Overseas Territory about 500 kilometers (300 miles) east of the Patagonian coast, which Argentina also claims. The United Nations writes Falkland Islands (Malvinas). Both names count as typed answers.
Pacific OceanThe largest and deepest ocean, about 165,250,000 square kilometers. That is about 46 percent of the water surface of Earth.
Atlantic OceanThe second largest ocean, about 85,133,000 square kilometers.
How this list was compiled: The 48 features, their names and their outlines come from Natural Earth 5.1.2, the map data credited under the drawing. Rivers are listed as rivers (Amazon River, Paraná River) where Natural Earth prints the bare name, and the bare name is accepted as a typed answer. Every length, area, height and name meaning in the detail lines was read in the English Wikipedia article for the feature and checked 2026-09-19: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Grande, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Madre_Occidental, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Madre_Oriental, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Plateau, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baja_California_peninsula, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_California, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Mexico, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Campeche, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Madre_del_Sur, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isthmus_of_Tehuantepec, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucatán_Peninsula, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Honduras, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nicaragua, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isthmus_of_Panama, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Panama, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargasso_Sea, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Antilles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_Sea, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesser_Antilles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Maracaibo, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalena_River, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanos, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orinoco, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Shield, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_basin, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_River, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ucayali_River, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeira_River, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocantins_River, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mato_Grosso, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/São_Francisco_River, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Highlands, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Titicaca, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altiplano, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atacama_Desert, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pantanal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Chaco, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraná_River, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay_River, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pampas, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Río_de_la_Plata, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patagonia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Magellan, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tierra_del_Fuego, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkland_Islands, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Ocean, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Ocean, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Falls. The Mato Grosso Plateau has no article of its own, so its line gives only the meaning of the name and the wetland to its south, both from the article on the state. The length of the Panama Canal is from the canal article and the height of Angel Falls from the falls article. Left out because the sources disagree: which lake is the largest in South America (Lake Maracaibo is sometimes classed as a bay), and whether the Nile or the Amazon is the longest river. The Falkland Islands are asked under the name Natural Earth prints. Islas Malvinas, the Spanish name, is accepted as a typed answer, and the detail line gives both names and the wording the United Nations uses. Positions in the hints were read off the drawing itself. The outlines of plains, plateaus, basins and deserts are general label areas, not surveyed edges, and some overlap: the Altiplano and the Atacama Desert lie on the Andes, Lake Titicaca on the Altiplano, and four rivers cross the Amazon Basin. The boxes that Mexico and Central America and The Caribbean zoom to were drawn tighter than the starter boxes, so the two oceans are asked only in the South America and big features rounds. The Galápagos Islands, Cape Horn and the Panama Canal are not parts of this drawing. Licence: own work
The drawing: Drawn for this site from Natural Earth 5.1.2, ne_50m_geography_regions_polys (scale 1:50,000,000), https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/v5.1.2/geojson/ne_50m_geography_regions_polys.geojson, downloaded 2026-09-19; from Natural Earth 5.1.2, ne_50m_geography_marine_polys (scale 1:50,000,000), https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/v5.1.2/geojson/ne_50m_geography_marine_polys.geojson, downloaded 2026-09-19; from Natural Earth 5.1.2, ne_10m_geography_marine_polys (scale 1:10,000,000), https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/v5.1.2/geojson/ne_10m_geography_marine_polys.geojson, downloaded 2026-09-19; from Natural Earth 5.1.2, ne_50m_lakes (scale 1:50,000,000), https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/v5.1.2/geojson/ne_50m_lakes.geojson, downloaded 2026-09-19; from Natural Earth 5.1.2, ne_50m_rivers_lake_centerlines (scale 1:50,000,000), https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/v5.1.2/geojson/ne_50m_rivers_lake_centerlines.geojson, downloaded 2026-09-19. Surrounding land from Natural Earth 5.1.2, ne_50m_admin_0_countries_lakes (scale 1:50,000,000), https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/v5.1.2/geojson/ne_50m_admin_0_countries_lakes.geojson, downloaded 2026-09-19. Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection centred on 12°S 76°W. Outlines simplified; small islands are left out. Licence: public domain (Natural Earth terms of use: https://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/terms-of-use/)
How it works
This physical geography of Latin America quiz asks 48 features on a map with no borders, from the Rio Grande to Tierra del Fuego: 24 landforms as shaded areas, 10 rivers as lines, and 14 lakes, gulfs, seas and oceans.
Read the full guide
Four rounds on one map of Latin America landforms
The big features is a round of 24: the Andes, the Amazon Basin, the Pampas, Patagonia, both oceans and the main rivers. Three more buttons take one region each. Mexico and Central America (16) and The Caribbean (8) zoom the map in, and South America asks 30. The Galápagos Islands, Cape Horn and the Panama Canal are not on the drawing.
Where shaded areas overlap
Some features lie on top of others: the Altiplano and the Atacama Desert sit on the Andes, and four rivers cross the Amazon Basin. A tap counts for the feature on top, so for the Andes tap north or south of those two. Small parts have a numbered ring, and the Uruguay River is answered at its ring.
Occidental is the western Sierra Madre and Oriental the eastern. The Mexican Plateau lies between them.
Four lowlands run north to south down the middle of South America: Llanos, Amazon Basin, Gran Chaco, Pampas.
The Paraná and the Uruguay end at the same place, the Río de la Plata.
Questions and answers
What are the main physical features of Latin America?
The Andes, the world's longest continental mountain range at about 8,900 kilometers, and the Amazon Basin, the largest drainage basin. Then the Mexican Plateau between two Sierra Madre ranges, the Brazilian and Guiana Highlands, the Pampas, Patagonia and the Atacama Desert.
Why does this physical geography map of Latin America have no countries?
A physical map shows land and water, so the borders are left off. Detail lines still name countries where that helps: the Atacama Desert is in northern Chile, and the Llanos are in Colombia and Venezuela.
Why does the quiz say Falkland Islands?
The drawing takes its names from Natural Earth, its map data, which prints Falkland Islands. In Spanish they are the Islas Malvinas, and Argentina claims them. The United Nations writes Falkland Islands (Malvinas). Either name counts as a typed answer.
Is the Amazon the longest river in South America?
Yes. The Paraná, about 4,880 kilometers, is second. The Amazon is also the largest river in the world by the water it carries. Whether it or the Nile is the longest in the world is disputed.