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The Pampas (from the qu, pampa, meaning "plain") are fertile
South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sou ...
n low
grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses ( Poaceae). However, sedge ( Cyperaceae) and rush ( Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur na ...
s that cover more than and include the Argentine provinces of
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
,
La Pampa La Pampa () is a sparsely populated province of Argentina, located in the Pampas in the center of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise San Luis, Córdoba, Buenos Aires, Río Negro, Neuquén and Mendoza. History ...
, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos, and Córdoba; all of Uruguay; and Brazil's southernmost state, Rio Grande do Sul. The vast plains are a
natural region A natural region (landscape unit) is a basic geographic unit. Usually, it is a region which is distinguished by its common natural features of geography, geology, and climate. From the ecological point of view, the naturally occurring flora an ...
, interrupted only by the low Ventana and Tandil hills, near Bahía Blanca and Tandil (Argentina), with a height of and , respectively. The climate is temperate, with
precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...
of that is more or less evenly distributed throughout the year, making the soils appropriate for
agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people ...
. The area is also one of the distinct physiography provinces of the larger Paraná
Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to t ...
plain division.


Topography

This region has generally low elevations, whose highest levels do not exceed 600 metres (1,970 feet) in altitude. The coastal areas and most of the Buenos Aires Province are predominantly plain (with some
wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (Anoxic waters, anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in t ...
s) and the interior areas (mainly in the southern part of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul and Uruguay) have low ranges of hills (like Serras de Sudeste in Brazil and
Cuchilla Grande Cuchilla Grande is a hill range that crosses the east part of Uruguay from north to south. It extends from the south part of Cerro Largo Department, through the departments of Treinta y Tres and Lavalleja and ends in Maldonado Department where it ...
in Uruguay). Low hills covered by grasslands are called ''coxilhas'' () in Portuguese and ''cuchillas'' () in Spanish, and it is the most typical landscape of the countryside areas in the northern parts of the Pampas. The highest elevations of the Pampas region are found in the Sierra de la Ventana mountains, in the southern part of Buenos Aires Province, with 1,239 m (4,065 ft) at the summit of Cerro Tres Picos.


Climates

The climate of the Pampas is generally temperate, gradually giving way to a more
humid subtropical climate A humid subtropical climate is a zone of climate characterized by hot and humid summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between latitudes 25° and 40° ...
in the north (''Cfa'', according to the
Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, nota ...
); a cold
semi-arid climate A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi ...
(''BSk'') on the southern and western fringes (like San Luis Province, western La Pampa Province and southern Buenos Aires Province); and an
oceanic climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ...
(''Cfb'') in the southeastern part (in the regions of Mar del Plata, Tandil and the Sierra de la Ventana mountains, Argentina). Summer temperatures are more uniform than winter temperatures, generally ranging from during the day. However, most cities in the Pampas occasionally have high temperatures that push , as occurs when warm, dry, northerly winds blow from southern Brazil, northern Argentina or
Paraguay Paraguay (; ), officially the Republic of Paraguay ( es, República del Paraguay, links=no; gn, Tavakuairetã Paraguái, links=si), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to t ...
. Autumn arrives gradually in March and peaks in April and May. In April, highs range from and lows from . The first frosts arrive in mid-April in the south and late May or early June in the north. Winters are generally mild, but cold waves often occur. Typical temperatures range from during the day, and from at night. With strong northerly winds, days of over can be recorded almost everywhere, and during cold waves, high temperatures can be only . Frost occurs everywhere in the Pampas, but it is much more frequent in the southwest than around the Parana and Uruguay Rivers. Temperatures under can occur everywhere, but values of or lower are confined to the south and west. Snow almost never falls in the northernmost third and is rare and light elsewhere, except for exceptional events in which depths have reached . Springs are very variable; it is warmer than fall in most areas (especially in the west) but significantly colder along the Atlantic. Violent storms are more common as well as wide temperature variations: days of can give way to nights of under or even frost, all within only a few days. Precipitation ranges from in the northeast to about or less in the southern and western edges. It is highly seasonal in the West, with some places recording averages of 120 mm (4.7 in) monthly in the summer, and only 20 millimeters (0.8 in) monthly in the winter. The eastern areas have small peaks in the fall and the spring, with relatively rainy summers and winters that are only slightly drier. However, where summer rain falls as short, heavy storms, winter rain falls mostly as cold drizzle, and so the amount of rainy days is fairly constant. Very intense
thunderstorm A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm or a lightning storm, is a storm characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere, known as thunder. Relatively weak thunderstorms are some ...
s are common in the spring and summer, and it has among the most frequent lightning and highest
convective Convection is single or multiphase fluid flow that occurs spontaneously due to the combined effects of material property heterogeneity and body forces on a fluid, most commonly density and gravity (see buoyancy). When the cause of the ...
cloud tops in the world. The severe thunderstorms produce intense hailstorms, both
flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...
s and flash floods, and the most consistently active
tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, alt ...
region outside the central and southeastern US.


Climate charts

Climate charts for different locations of the Pampas:


Wildlife

Human activity has caused major changes to the wildlife of the Pampas. Most big or medium sized species such as the puma, rhea, Capybara, plains viscacha, maned wolf, marsh deer and Pampas deer have lost their habitats especially due to the spread of agriculture and
ranch A ranch (from es, rancho/Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of a farm. These terms are most ofte ...
ing, and are only present in very few relicts of the pampas. Other species, such as the Jaguar and the Guanaco have been extirpated completely from this habitat. Mammals that are still fairly present include Brazilian guinea pig, southern mountain cavy,
coypu The nutria (''Myocastor coypus''), also known as the coypu, is a large, herbivorous, semiaquatic rodent. Classified for a long time as the only member of the family Myocastoridae, ''Myocastor'' is now included within Echimyidae, the family of t ...
,
Pampas fox The Pampas fox (''Lycalopex gymnocercus''), also known as grey pampean fox, Pampas zorro, Azara's fox, or Azara's zorro (in Spanish also called , anglicized as aguarachay, in Portuguese also called ), is a medium-sized zorro, or "false" fox, n ...
, Geoffroy's cat, lesser grison,
white-eared opossum The white-eared opossum (''Didelphis albiventris''), known as the timbu in Brazil and comadreja overa in Argentina, is an opossum species found in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. It is a terrestrial and, sometimes, arboreal ani ...
, Molina's hog-nosed skunk,
big lutrine opossum The big lutrine opossum (''Lutreolina crassicaudata''), also known as the little water opossum, comadreja colorada, thick-tailed opossum, or coligrueso is an opossum species from South America in the genus ''Lutreolina''. Description The big ...
, big hairy armadillo and southern long-nosed armadillo. Bird species of the pampas are ruddy-headed goose,
pampas meadowlark The Pampas meadowlark (''Leistes defilippii'') is a species of bird in the family Icteridae. It is found in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Its natural habitats are temperate shrubland, pampas grassland, subtropical or tropical dry lowland gra ...
,
hudsonian godwit The Hudsonian godwit (''Limosa haemastica'') is a large shorebird in the sandpiper family, Scolopacidae. The genus name ''Limosa'' is from Latin and means "muddy", from ''limus'', "mud". The specific ''haemastica'' is from Ancient Greek and me ...
, maguari stork,
white-faced ibis The white-faced ibis (''Plegadis chihi'') is a wading bird in the ibis family, Threskiornithidae. This species breeds colonially in marshes, usually nesting in bushes or low trees. Its breeding range extends from the western United States south ...
, white-winged coot, southern screamer,
dot-winged crake The dot-winged crake (''Laterallus spiloptera'') is a Vulnerable species of bird in subfamily Rallinae of family Rallidae, the rails, gallinules, and coots.HBW and BirdLife International (2021) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife ...
, curve-billed reedhaunter, burrowing owl and the rhea. Invasive species include the European hare,
wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species i ...
and
house sparrow The house sparrow (''Passer domesticus'') is a bird of the Old World sparrow, sparrow family Passeridae, found in most parts of the world. It is a small bird that has a typical length of and a mass of . Females and young birds are coloured pale ...
. File:Venado-Campo-UY-Ozotoceros bezoarticus.jpg, Pampas deer File:Lycalopex gymnocercus.jpg, Pampas fox File:Greater rhea (Rhea americana).JPG, Rhea File:Southern screamer (Chauna torquata).JPG, Southern screamer


Vegetation

Historically, frequent
wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identi ...
s ensured that only small plants such as
grasses Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns ...
flourished, while
tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...
s were less common. The dominant
vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic charac ...
types are grassy prairie and grass
steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the temperate gras ...
, in which numerous species of the grass genus '' Stipa'' are particularly conspicuous. "Pampas grass" ('' Cortaderia selloana'') is an iconic species of the Pampas. Vegetation typically includes perennial grasses and
herb In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicina ...
s. Different strata of grasses occur because of gradients of water availability. The
World Wildlife Fund The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the W ...
divides the Pampas into three distinct
ecoregions An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of l ...
. The Uruguayan Savanna lies east of the Paraná River, and includes all of Uruguay, most of Entre Ríos and Corrientes provinces in Argentina, and the southern portion of Brazil's state of Rio Grande do Sul. The Humid Pampas include eastern Buenos Aires Province, and southern Entre Ríos Province. The Semiarid Pampas includes western Buenos Aires Province and adjacent portions of Santa Fe, Córdoba, and La Pampa provinces. The Pampas are bounded by the drier
Argentine Espinal The Espinal (NT0801) is an ecoregion of dry, thorny forest, savanna and steppe in Argentina. It has been extensively modified by large scale cattle ranching, but remnants of the original flora remain. It is threatened by the advance of the irriga ...
grasslands, which form a semicircle around the north, west, and south of the Humid Pampas. Winters are cold to mild, and summers are hot and humid. Rainfall is fairly uniform throughout the year but is a little heavier during the summer. Annual rainfall is heaviest near the coast and decreases gradually further inland. Rain during the late spring and summer usually arrives in the form of brief heavy showers and thunderstorms. More general rainfall occurs the remainder of the year as cold fronts and storm systems move through. Although cold spells during the winter often send nighttime temperatures below freezing,
snow Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughou ...
is quite rare. In most winters, a few light snowfalls occur over inland areas. Central Argentina boasts a successful agricultural business, with crops grown on the Pampas south and west of
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
. Much of the area is also used for
cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ...
, and more recently, to cultivate vineyards in the Buenos Aires wine region. The area is also used for farming honey using European
honeybees A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current c ...
. These farming regions are particularly susceptible to flooding during the thunderstorms. The weather averages out to be 60 °F (16 °C) year-round in the Pampas.


Population

* **
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
17,196,396 ** Córdoba 3,683,937 ** Santa Fe 3,481,514 ** City of Buenos Aires 3,068,043 ** Entre Ríos 1,360,443 **
La Pampa La Pampa () is a sparsely populated province of Argentina, located in the Pampas in the center of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise San Luis, Córdoba, Buenos Aires, Río Negro, Neuquén and Mendoza. History ...
352,378 * ** Rio Grande do Sul 11,247,972 * ** All departments 3,518,552 *Total Population 43,909,235


Immigration

Starting in the 1840s but intensifying after the 1880s, European immigrants began to migrate to the Pampas, first as part of government-sponsored colonization schemes to settle the land and later as tenant farmers "working as either a sharecropper or as paid laborers for absentee landowners"Meade, Teresa A. History of modern Latin America: 1800 to the present. Wiley Blackwell, 2016. in an attempt to make a living for themselves. However, many immigrants eventually moved to more permanent employment in cities, as industrialization picked up after the 1930s. As a result, Argentina's history of immigration in Buenos Aires Province is typically associated with cities and urban life, unlike in Entre Ríos Province and Santa Fe Province, where European immigration took on a more rural profile.


See also

* Dry Pampa * Estancia * Federal University of Pampa * Gaucho * Humid Pampas * José Froilán González - the "Pampas Bull" * Luis Ángel Firpo - the "Wild Bull of Las Pampas" * Médanos (dunes) * Médanos wines *
Riograndense Republic The Riograndense Republic, often called the Piratini Republic ( pt, República Rio-Grandense or ), was a ''de facto'' state that seceded from the Empire of Brazil and roughly coincided with the present state of Rio Grande do Sul. It was proc ...
* Southern Cone * South American jaguar


References


External links


"The Pampas"
in the ''
Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...
'' {{Authority control Agriculture in Argentina Climate of Argentina Ecoregions of Argentina Ecoregions of Brazil Ecoregions of South America Environment of Rio Grande do Sul Grasslands of Argentina Grasslands of Brazil Grasslands of South America Grasslands of Uruguay Landforms of Buenos Aires Province Landforms of Córdoba Province, Argentina Landforms of Entre Ríos Province Landforms of La Pampa Province Landforms of Rio Grande do Sul Landforms of Santa Fe Province Landforms of Uruguay Natural history of Uruguay Natural regions of South America Neotropical ecoregions Physiographic provinces Plains of Argentina Plains of Brazil Plains of South America Quechua words and phrases Regions of Argentina Temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands