Latin America and the Caribbean:Who We Are

PERU

The visitor to Peru finds a wide variety of ecosystems, ranging from parched coastal deserts where rain is virtually unknown to vast expanses of tropical rain forest that receive over 6,000 mm of rainfall each year. Between these extremes lie dry forests, high-elevation grasslands, dwarf and cloud forests, and snow-capped mountains rising above 6,800 meters. More than 1,600 bird species have been recorded in Peru, more than in all of Brazil, a country six times its size. Manu National Park alone harbors 25 percent of all avian species recorded in South America. Peru is also the center of origin of many economically important plants, including potatoes and tomatoes.