The statistic shows the largest countries in South America, based on land area. Brazil is the largest country by far, with a total area of over 8.5 million square kilometers, followed by Argentina, with almost 2.8 million square kilometers.

Based on land area, Brazil is the largest country in Latin America by far, with a total area of over 8.5 million square kilometers. Argentina follows with almost 2.8 million square kilometers. Cuba, whose surface area extends over almost 111,000 square kilometers, is the Caribbean country with the largest territory.

Brazil: a country with a lot to offer

Brazil's borders reach nearly half of the South American subcontinent, making it the fifth-largest country in the world and the third-largest country in the Western Hemisphere. Along with its landmass, Brazil also boasts the largest population and economy in the region. Although Brasília is the capital, the most significant portion of the country's population is concentrated along its coastline in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

South America: a region of extreme geographic variation

With the Andes mountain range in the West, the Amazon Rainforest in the East, the Equator in the North, and Cape Horn as the Southern-most continental tip, South America has some of the most diverse climatic and ecological terrains in the world. At its core, its biodiversity can largely be attributed to the Amazon, the world's largest tropical rainforest, and the Amazon river, the world's largest river. However, with this incredible wealth of ecology also comes great responsibility. In the past decade, roughly 80,000 square kilometers of the Brazilian Amazon were destroyed. And, as of late 2019, there were at least 1,000 threatened species in Brazil alone.

Russia is the largest country in the world by far, with a total area of just over 17 million square kilometers. After Antarctica, the next three countries are Canada, the U.S., and China; all between 9.5 and 10 million square kilometers. The figures given include internal water surface area (such as lakes or rivers) - if the figures were for land surface only then China would be the second largest country in the world, the U.S. third, and Canada (the country with more lakes than the rest of the world combined) fourth. Russia Russia has a population of around 145 million people, putting it in the top ten most populous countries in the world, and making it the most populous in Europe. However, it's vast size gives it a very low population density, ranked among the bottom 20 countries. Most of Russia's population is concentrated in the west, with around 75 percent of the population living in the European part, while around 75 percent of Russia's territory is in Asia; the Ural Mountains are considered the continental border. Elsewhere in the world Beyond Russia, the world's largest countries all have distinctive topographies and climates setting them apart. The United States, for example, has climates ranging from tundra in Alaska to tropical forests in Florida, with various mountain ranges, deserts, plains, and forests in between. Populations in these countries are often concentrated in urban areas, and are not evenly distributed across the country. For example, around 85 percent of Canada's population lives within 100 miles of the U.S. border; around 95 percent of China lives east of the Heihe–Tengchong Line that splits the country; and the majority of populations in large countries such as Australia or Brazil live near the coast.

In 2025, Brazil and Mexico were expected to be the countries with the largest gross domestic product (GDP) in Latin America and the Caribbean. In that year, Brazil's GDP could reach an estimated value of 2.3 trillion U.S. dollars, whereas Mexico's amounted to almost 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars. GDP is the total value of all goods and services produced in a country in a given year. It measures the economic strength of a country and a positive change indicates economic growth.

As of February 2025, more than ** percent of the population of Uruguay was on social media. On the other hand, approximately ** percent of Haitians used social networking platforms. Among the largest Latin American markets, Brazil had the lowest social media penetration rate at **** percent, just below Colombia and Argentina. Online networking among Chilean young adults intensifies Young adults are the primary audience of social media in Chile. Nearly half of all Facebook users in the South American country were between 18 and 34 years old. The same age group accounted for almost ** percent of Chilean users of LinkedIn. This generation has also been devoting more of its time to this type of online activity. Obstacles for the expansion of social media in Brazil A handful of issues still set part of Latin America's online population apart from social networks. Despite having the biggest social media audiences in Latin America, countries like Brazil and Mexico still struggled to provide internet access to their populations, thus hindering social media penetration rates.

As of August 2025, Brazil was home to ****** million Facebook users. In Latin America, it was followed by Mexico and Colombia with approximately *** million and ** million Facebook users, respectively. In the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic was the country with the largest number of people on the social media platform. Facebook’s forecasted future Brazil is expected to continue building up its Facebook audience in the coming years. It is estimated that by 2025, the South American nation will reach nearly ***** million users on the social network. By that same year, more than ***** million Mexicans are forecast to be on Facebook, according to another source. Despite such awaited growth, Facebook’s market share decreased in most of the six largest Latin American countries between 2019 and 2020 – the exception was Chile, where an increase of *** percent was recorded. Concurrently, Instagram, also owned by Facebook, Inc., experienced an increase in its market share across the region. Pandemic Facebook posting In March 2020, when COVID-19 was officially characterized by the World Health Organization as a pandemic, Facebook users in Brazil made nearly ** percent more posts than they had during the same month a year prior. Furthermore, the contents of posts addressing the virus, made during the month of March throughout Latin America, were more visual than textual. Namely, ** percent of posts using the words ‘coronavirus’ or ‘COVID-19’ consisted of videos and almost ********* of them contained photos, whereas only *** percent included users’ statuses. At that same time, Latin American governments flocked to the social network to communicate with the region's inhabitants, increasing their Facebook posting behavior by almost ** percent in one year.

In 2023, Brazil ranked first by total population among the 24 territories presented in the ranking. Brazil's total population amounted to 211.14 million people, while Mexico and Colombia, the second and third territories, had records amounting to 129.74 million people and 52.32 million people, respectively.

In 2025, approximately 23 million people lived in the São Paulo metropolitan area, making it the biggest in Latin America and the Caribbean and the sixth most populated in the world. The homonymous state of São Paulo was also the most populous federal entity in the country. The second place for the region was Mexico City with 22.75 million inhabitants. Brazil's cities Brazil is home to two large metropolises, only counting the population within the city limits, São Paulo had approximately 11.45 million inhabitants, and Rio de Janeiro around 6.21 million inhabitants. It also contains a number of smaller, but well known cities such as Brasília, Salvador, Belo Horizonte and many others, which report between 2 and 3 million inhabitants each. As a result, the country's population is primarily urban, with nearly 88 percent of inhabitants living in cities. Mexico City Mexico City's metropolitan area ranks sevenths in the ranking of most populated cities in the world. Founded over the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan in 1521 after the Spanish conquest as the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the city still stands as one of the most important in Latin America. Nevertheless, the preeminent economic, political, and cultural position of Mexico City has not prevented the metropolis from suffering the problems affecting the rest of the country, namely, inequality and violence. Only in 2023, the city registered a crime incidence of 52,723 reported cases for every 100,000 inhabitants and around 24 percent of the population lived under the poverty line.

Guyana was the South American country 20360the highest gross national income per capita, with 20,360 U.S. dollars per person in 2023. Uruguay ranked second, registering a GNI of 19,530 U.S. dollars per person, based on current prices. Gross national income (GNI) is the aggregated sum of the value added by residents in an economy, plus net taxes (minus subsidies) and net receipts of primary income from abroad. Which are the largest Latin American economies? Based on annual gross domestic product, which is the total amount of goods and services produced in a country per year, Brazil leads the regional ranking, followed by Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. Many Caribbean countries and territories hold the highest GDP per capita in this region, measurement that reflects how GDP would be divided if it was perfectly equally distributed among the population. GNI per capita is, however, a more exact calculation of wealth than GDP per capita, as it takes into consideration taxes paid and income receipts from abroad. How much inequality is there in Latin America? In many Latin American countries, more than half the total wealth created in their economies is held by the richest 20 percent of the population. When a small share of the population concentrates most of the wealth, millions of people don't have enough to make ends meet. For instance, in Brazil, about 5.32 percent of the population lives on less than 3.2 U.S. dollars per day.

As of 2023, Brazil's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) amounted to more than *** trillion US dollars. That amount was not only more than all other South American countries' GPDs combined, but also puts Brazil in 8th place worldwide. Argentina came in second, with around *** billion USD this same year.

As of August 2025, Brazil was home to approximately *** million users of Instagram. This is more than the rest of the Latin American top-five countries combined. Mexico had around ** million Instagram users, while Argentina, Colombia, and Chile had ***** million, ***** million, and ***** million users, respectively. Similarly, Brazil and Mexico also had the largest number of Facebook users in Latin America.

Brazil, the most populated country and the economy with the highest GDP in Latin America, had the largest market research revenue in the region in 2022. Out of all the Latin American and Caribbean countries included in the study, Brazil ranked first, with a market research revenue of *** million U.S. dollars, followed by Mexico, with *** million U.S. dollars.

As of 2023, Uruguay was the country in South America with the largest Gross Domestic Product per capita, with ********* US dollars. Guyana landed in second place, with ********* US dollars per capita. When it comes to the total GDP in South America, Brazil led the region this year with more than * trillion U.S. dollars.

Among selected South American countries, Brazil ranked as the economy with the largest forecast gross expenditure on research & development (GERD) in 2022, with a total of ** billion U.S. dollars in PPP terms. Argentina followed in a distant second place, with GERD amounting to **** billion dollars. Paraguay was the country of the selection with the lowest forecast expenditure, **** billion dollars.

In 2023, Argentina was the country with the largest area dedicated to vineyards in Latin America, reporting an area of ******* hectares. Chile reported the second-largest area, with ******* hectares. That year, Brazil increased its vineyard area from ****** to ****** hectares. By 2028, it is estimated that the size of the Latin American wine market will surpass ** billion U.S. dollars.

As of February 2025, Brazil had approximately 183 million internet users. That is more than Mexico and Argentina combined, the two ranking second and third respectively. Meanwhile, in the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic featured the largest number of internet users.

In 2022, Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for around ****** million social media users, ranking as the fifth most popular region for this type of platform worldwide. Brazil and Mexico were the countries with the continent’s biggest social network audiences, registering ****** million and ***** million users each in the measured period. Additionally, Brazil is also the fifth largest market for social media worldwide.

Meta’s new contenders

The products owned by social media giant Meta (formerly known as Facebook Inc.) still reign across the social media landscape in Latin America and the Caribbean, as Facebook is still used by almost ** percent of the continent’s population. However, new competitors like Telegram and content-focused networks like TikTok are challenging Meta’s hegemony. The ByteDance-owned company TikTok has already surpassed Instagram in Mexico, Colombia, and Peru regarding the number of users, becoming the second-largest network in these countries.

Hardships on internet access

Even though Latin America increases its connectivity in traffic via mobile devices, the inequality in access to the internet throughout the continent also is also reflected in the presence of its populations on social media platforms. Almost ** percent of people living in South America have access to these networks, against ** percent of those living in Central America and only ** percent of those living in the Caribbean.

In 2024, Brazil was the leading Latin American country in terms of installed renewable energy capacity in the region, with nearly 213.9 gigawatts. Brazil's installed energy capacity represented approximately 58 percent of the region's renewable energy capacity in 2024, Mexico trailed in second, with a capacity of 34 gigawatts.

The Latin American country with the most significant information technology (IT) market in 2022 was Brazil, totaling ** billion U.S. dollars. Mexico ranked second, with an IT market value worth ** billion U.S. dollars, while Peru's IT market amounted to only *** billion U.S. dollars. In 2022, the most valuable segment in Brazil’s IT market was hardware, amounting to **** billion U.S. dollars, while the country’s software market was valued at **** billion U.S. dollars. Brazil’s software market In 2020, the most important segments of Brazil’s software market were software application, software development environment, and infrastructure and security, with the latter accounting for nearly ** percent of the country’s software market. At the same time, the market revenue of Software as a Service (SaaS) increased over the past years, peaking at *** billion U.S. dollars in 2020. This growth spike was almost double the value recorded in 2017. When it comes to regional distribution, over ** percent of Brazil’s software market was concentrated in the South-Eastern region in 2022. By contrast, the Northern part of the country accounted for approximately ***** percent of Brazil’s software market. Software companies in Brazil In 2022, more than ** thousand companies were operating in the Brazilian IT service industry, and approximately ***** thousand companies specialized in software development and production. One of the most important software companies is Totvs, which also operates in the United States, Portugal, and Latin America. In the first semester of 2021, the company generated **** billion Brazilian reals in revenue with their software services. Another software company that operates in Brazil, as well as in several other Latin American countries is Globant. In 2021, Globant’s revenue in Brazil amounted to almost ** million U.S. dollars. By contrast, Globant’s revenue in the U.S. totaled *** million U.S. dollars in the same year.

Throughout 2024, Brazil reported nearly 279,000 wildfire outbreaks, by far the highest figure in South America. Bolivia registered the second-largest number of wildfires in the region that year, at over 90,000. On the other hand, 276 wildfires were detected in Uruguay during the reported period, the lowest number amongst South American countries and territories. The lungs of the world Spanning nine different countries, the Amazon rainforest makes up approximately 40 percent of South America. Predominantly encompassed by Brazil, the government has made some efforts towards protecting what is left of the world's most abundant tropical rainforest. Over five million square kilometers of land area lie under a special regime designated as the Legal Amazon in Brazil. Nevertheless, wildfires in the region remain a cause for concern. In 2024, over 192,000 outbreaks were registered in the Legal Amazon, accounting for more than half of the country's occurrences that year. Brazil's blind ambition At the heart of the issue of wildfires is deforestation as a technique to expand land for farming and pastures. Along with the incremental rise in wildfires, the Amazon's deforestation rate has seen a continual increase for most of the decade. As Brazil climbs global markets to become the leading producer of soybean and beef, the country's agricultural ambitions have led to the lightening of environmental restrictions and the re-allocation of land for farming purposes. In turn, the area planted with crops in the Legal Amazon has nearly tripled since 2000.