Hey everybody, Bryan here and crammed in between the vast country of Mexico and the vast continent
of South America, Central America often feels well, a little like the middle child of the
western hemisphere. Its size, population, output, and importance have all been seemingly dwarfed by
its giant neighbors, but as most middle children will tell you, don't let the size fool you.
Central America is home to one of the origins of the mythical El Dorado,
or city of gold, which drove conquistadors throughout the area, one of the most important
commercial waterways in the entire world, and serves as a place of incredible biodiversity.
So today let's learn about the physical characteristics of Central America.
Location. Central America is an isthmus which
apart from sounding like a cartographer threw a bunch of random letters into a word
means a narrow strip of land with a sea or body of water on either side and Central America,
sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east,
definitely fits that description! This isthmus, running about 1,440 miles, features
no point that is further than 125 miles from the sea and at some points it's as narrow as 30 miles.
Within that relatively small isthmus lie seven countries which are from roughly north to south
Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Within
these seven countries lies some pretty interesting physical features so let's shift over those next.
Climate Zones. Just by looking you can tell that Central America is pretty mountainous all together
and the steep elevations have a large impact on the climate.
Central America has two major climate zones in the mountains mostly influenced by elevation.
From 3,000 to 6,000 feet above sea level, the weather is something like
a permanent North American spring. There is no frost season and this region is where
most of the corn and coffee are grown. Above 6,000 feet it starts to get cold
and there's a consistent frost season rendering most of the land unusable for many crops. Potatoes
and barley make up the bulk of what can be grown here and most of it is for subsistence purposes.
Coastal Climates. The two narrow strips of flat land which run along the coast of Central America
have similar but not all together the same climate features. On the east toward the Caribbean Sea,
the climate is tropical wet which means that plentiful rainfall and high temperatures
lead to explosive plant growth and high humidity. Even with these conditions, remember that tropical
rainforest soil isn't all that fertile and not really all that good for growing crops.
The western pacific coast has a tropical wet dry climate which indicates that there
is a rainy season during the summer and a dry season during the winter. As a result,
the foliage tends to be more grassland or savannah and unlike the east coast,
the volcanic soil on the western side of Central America is uniquely good for farming.
Physical Features: Mountains and Volcanoes. First,
a couple of quick questions. Number 1. Do you remember the name of the mountain
ranges connected together which ran from the Canadian Rockies to Tierra del Fuego?
Did you guess the American Cordillera? Well done! Okay, Number 2. Do you remember the story of
Dionysia Pulido and the strange occurrence in his field? The volcano Parícutin, right! Why do I ask?
Well, running right through Central America is the connection of the American Cordillera between
North and South America and the volcanoes? Well, we'll get to that in a minute. The Sierra Madre de
Chiapas running from southern Mexico and through Guatemala, el Salvador, and Honduras, the Sierra
Madre de Chiapas is the largest range within a very mountainous isthmus and rises to a maximum
height of 13,850 feet. Cordillera Isabelia. Dominating the country of Guatemala and reaching
heights of almost 7,000 feet, the Cordillera Isabelia creates a series of high plateaus
and deep valleys which defines the majority of the topography in Guatemala. Cordillera de Talamanca.
Reaching from southern Costa Rica through Panama and reaching a height of 12,350 feet,
much of this mountain range is so thickly forested that it has yet to be explored by man!
Volcanoes! Remember the 13,850 foot height in the Sierra Madre de Chiapas I mentioned earlier?
Well that height is the volcano Tajamulco located in southwestern Guatemala. Tajamulco
is one of many many volcanic peaks both active and dormant which stretch throughout Central America.
So why is that? Well, Central America is the meeting place for the Caribbean, Cocos, Nazca,
and North American tectonic plates. As a brief refresher, tectonic plates are huge
sheets of rock which make up the crust or top layer of the earth. At certain points
they mash together and create fault lines and cracks which create earthquakes and volcanoes.
This conjunction has been responsible for many major earthquakes striking primarily
Guatemala and Nicaragua as recently as 2014. El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras
have all had quakes of 7.7 on the Richter Scale and above within the last 30 years.
Biodiversity Hotspot. Central America is identified as a biodiversity hotspot,
or an area of unusually large and diverse flora and fauna concentration. In this case
boasting almost 7% of total biodiversity of the entire planet! One of the most compelling features
of Central America are the cloud forests of the subtropical region. A cloud forest is a
subtropical forest that, due to peculiarities of the region's elevation and climate,
has a persistent year-round cloud or mist cover. These are especially prevalent in Costa Rica with
the forest outside Monteverde and Sierra de las minas in Guatemala which is the largest cloud
forest in the world. Both of these areas are hot spots for ecotourism as people can travel through
the forest canopy to experience the extraordinary biodiversity. Lake Nicaragua. The largest lake
in Central America, lake Nicaragua at some time in the past was connected to the sea,
but volcanic and geologic activity cut it off. It is intermittently connected to the Caribbean Sea
via the San Juan river. The lake is freshwater and literally called Mar Dulce, or sweet ocean,
in Spanish and is a major source of water for Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Now I don't want to
put you off on a visit to this magnificent body of water, but I do have to warn you
lake Nicaragua has sharks! Also it has swordfish, also it has tarpon. Well, maybe I should explain.
For a long time most oceanologists believe that the sharks in lake Nicaragua were endemic,
or native to the lake, and they were called Nicaraguan Lake Sharks. In the 1960s,
scientists began to track these sharks and found that they were actually bull
sharks coming in through the San Juan river swimming upstream from the Caribbean just
like salmon do. They make the trip in 7 to 11 days. While the behavior isn't explained,
bull sharks have been known to be able to survive in fresh water.
Some having been found over 1,000 miles up the North American Mississippi river near St. Louis!
Hurricanes. Christopher Columbus, on his fourth and final voyage to the new world,
put in at Santo Domingo to warn a fleet of ships preparing to sail for Spain about a monster storm
on its way. As possibly the first European to have experienced a hurricane from a previous voyage,
Columbus knew the devastating impact these tropically generated storms could unleash.
As you can imagine, sandwiched between two oceans, Central America has had its fair share
of hurricanes. The most infamous of these being hurricane Mitch which slammed into Honduras on
October 29th, 1998 making landfall as a category 5 hurricane. With Honduras and Nicaragua taking the
brunt of the storm, massive mudslides and flooding would end up costing well over 5 billion dollars
in recovery damage. And more devastatingly, cost somewhere between 11 to 18,000 lives.
While monster hurricanes are not frequent, tropical storms and seasonal heavy rains are
and the limited infrastructure of much of Central America leaves the people particularly vulnerable
to these natural disasters, highlighting the importance of international aid to these areas.
In Central America People and Culture, we'll talk about those who inhabit
Central America and their unique cultural complexes. Until next time, keep exploring!