| A | B |
|---|
| peninsula | a strip of land that juts into the ocean |
| irrigation | the artificial watering of farmland by storing and distributing water drawn from reservoirs or rivers |
| sinkhole | a natural depression in the land caused by the collapse of the roof of an underground cavern |
| hacienda | a large Spanish-owned estate granted to conquistadors by the Spanish king |
| land redistribution | a government program of dividing large estates among landless peasants |
| ejido | farmland owned collectively by members of a rural community |
| subsistence farming | producing only enough crops to meet the need's of one's family |
| latifundio | huge commercial farms |
| cash crops | farm crop grown for sale and profit |
| migrant worker | peasant who travels to where extra farm workers are needed |
| isthmus | a narrow strip of land, with water on both sides, that connects two larger bodies of land |
| guerillas | armed forces outside the regular army |
| caudillo | military dictator |
| archipelago | a group of islands |
| windward | facing the wind |
| leeward | facing away from the wind |
| escarpment | a steep cliff between two level areas at different heights |
| favela | a poor Brazilian community |
| sertao | an interior region of Brazil with poor conditions for farming |
| gasahol | a mix of gasoline and ethanol |
| service industry | a business that provides services to customers instead of manufacturing a product |
| mulatto | a person of mixed African and other ancestry |
| bauxite | a mineral used in making aluminum |
| Llanos | a tropical grassland region in Venezuela |
| cordillera | a set of parallel mountain ranges |
| campesino | a tenant farmer |
| altiplano | plateaus located in the Andes of Bolivia and Peru |
| paramos | plateaus in the Andes of Ecuador |
| timber line | the boundary above which continuous forest vegetation cannot grow |
| selva | a Spanish word meaning "forest" or "jungle" that refers to a forested region in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia |
| estuary | a broad river mouth formed where a flooded river valley meets the sea |
| piedmont | a region of foothills |
| pampas | temperate grasslands of Argentina and Uruguay |
| gaucho | cowboy |
