--- title: Latin America and the Caribbean — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Latin America and the Caribbean», a lesson of the geography course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Why do Brazilians speak Portuguese while their neighbours speak Spanish? --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/) / Latin America and the Caribbean # Latin America and the Caribbean Lesson 14 of the geography course of Mova's primary school: 18 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/). - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/1/) — Why do Brazilians speak Portuguese while their neighbours speak Spanish? - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/2/) — In 1494, in the Treaty of Tordesillas, Spain and Portugal drew a line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, and the eastern bulge of South America fell on Portugal's side. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/3/) — In Europa Universalis 5, colonising looks like filling empty provinces with settlers. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/4/) — Really the land was home to millions of people: after 1492 the Indigenous population collapsed, in many regions by perhaps nine out of ten within a century, mostly from new diseases such as smallpox, along with war and forced labour. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/5/) — Picture Mexico City today: its cathedral stands on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital on an island in a lake, which the Spanish conquered in 1521. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/6/) — The old lake bed is soft, so parts of the city are slowly sinking. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/7/) — The mountains shape everything here: Chile is squeezed into a long thin strip by the Andes, and Bolivia's government works in La Paz, about 3,600 metres up, where visitors gasp for breath. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/8/) — Latin America means the countries of the Americas where languages that grew from Latin are spoken, mainly Spanish and Portuguese, and sometimes French. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/9/) — Brazil is the largest country in South America, with about 213 million people, and its capital is Brasília, a planned city built far inland that replaced Rio de Janeiro in 1960, to bring people and growth into the inland, away from the coast. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/10/) — In 1494 Spain and Portugal agreed in the Treaty of Tordesillas to divide newly found lands along a line 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, which gave Portugal the eastern bulge of South America. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/11/) — Mexico City was built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital on an island in Lake Texcoco, which the Spanish conquered in 1521. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/12/) — After 1492 the Indigenous population of the Americas collapsed, in many regions by perhaps nine out of ten within a century, mostly from new diseases such as smallpox, along with war and forced labour; the exact numbers are still debated. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/13/) — Brazil received about 4.9 million enslaved Africans, more than any other country, and in 1888 it was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/15/) — Most of Spain's mainland American colonies won independence between 1810 and 1825, led by figures such as Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín, and Bolivia is named after Bolívar. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/16/) — Bolivia's official capital is Sucre, but its government sits in La Paz at about 3,600 metres, the highest seat of government in the world, where the air is thin, with less oxygen, so newcomers get short of breath, while Quito in Ecuador, at about 2,850 metres, is the highest official capital. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/17/) — Chile, with its capital Santiago, is about 4,300 km long but on average less than 200 km wide, squeezed between the Andes and the Pacific. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/18/) — The Caribbean islands were colonised by Spain, Britain, France, the Netherlands and Denmark, and Cuba, with its capital Havana, is the largest island; when Columbus arrived in 1492 the islands were home to peoples such as the Taíno. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/14-latin-america-and-the-caribbean/19/) — Lima, Peru's capital, was founded by the Spanish in 1535, while the Inca capital had been Cusco, high in the Andes. - ← previous: [Africa: countries and capitals](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/13-africa-countries-and-capitals/) - next →: [The Arctic and Antarctica](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/15-the-arctic-and-antarctica/) - ↑ back to [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/)