Physical map of South America
Physical map of South America shows the shape of the land with shaded relief and colors for elevation. Rivers and lakes are drawn in blue, and dashed lines show country borders. Download the labeled map or use the version without names as a worksheet.
How to read this map
Named features on this map include Andes, Amazon basin, Gran Chaco, Llanos, Pampas, Brazilian Highlands, Mato Grosso Plateau, Caatinga, Cordillera Occidental, Cordillera Real, Cordillera Oriental, Cordillera Blanca, Cordillera Occidental, Cordillera Blanca, Altiplano, Guiana Highlands, Brazilian Highlands, Chaco Boreal, Chaco Austral, Atacama Desert, Serra do Mar, Serra Geral, Serra da Mantiquiera, Aconcagua, Cerro La Raya, Chimborazo volcano, Pico Bolívar, Mount Champaquí. The terrain colors help locate these features within the surrounding lowlands, plateaus and mountain belts.
The mapped river network includes Araguaia, São Francisco, Paranaíba, Ucayali, Tocantins, Indaiá, Magdalena, Neuquén. Only selected rivers are labeled at this scale; a missing label does not mean that a river is absent.
Greens show lower elevations; tan and brown show higher land, with pale tones toward the highest terrain. Shadows emphasize the slopes. Vertical relief is exaggerated to make landforms easier to read, so the map is not a slope survey. Blue tones distinguish seas from land; the legend is a guide to land elevation, not a chart of water depth.
The relief uses Terrain Tiles, a composite of SRTM, GMTED2010 and ETOPO1 elevation data distributed through the AWS Open Data program. Boundaries, rivers, lakes and feature names come from Natural Earth. These are small-scale educational maps rather than navigation or engineering surveys.
Blank physical map
The blank version keeps the mapped features and removes the place labels. Download it for a geography worksheet or practice identifying the features.
Features and names
| Reference | Name or description |
|---|---|
| Named physical feature | Andes |
| Named physical feature | Amazon basin |
| Named physical feature | Gran Chaco |
| Named physical feature | Llanos |
| Named physical feature | Pampas |
| Named physical feature | Brazilian Highlands |
| Named physical feature | Mato Grosso Plateau |
| Named physical feature | Caatinga |
| Named physical feature | Cordillera Occidental |
| Named physical feature | Cordillera Real |
| Named physical feature | Cordillera Oriental |
| Named physical feature | Cordillera Blanca |
| Named physical feature | Cordillera Occidental |
| Named physical feature | Cordillera Blanca |
| Named physical feature | Altiplano |
| Named physical feature | Guiana Highlands |
| Named physical feature | Brazilian Highlands |
| Named physical feature | Chaco Boreal |
| Named physical feature | Chaco Austral |
| Named physical feature | Atacama Desert |
| Named physical feature | Serra do Mar |
| Named physical feature | Serra Geral |
| Named physical feature | Serra da Mantiquiera |
| Named physical feature | Aconcagua |
| Named physical feature | Cerro La Raya |
| Named physical feature | Chimborazo volcano |
| Named physical feature | Pico Bolívar |
| Named physical feature | Mount Champaquí |
Data sources and license
- Natural Earth (public-domain geography): Public domain.
- Terrain Tiles / Mapzen (SRTM, GMTED2010, ETOPO1): Open elevation data; source attribution retained.
Map design and rendered images: Atlas of Maps, CC BY 4.0. Source databases retain their own licenses; the map license does not replace them.
Also see the political map of South America with countries and capitals.
Frequently asked questions
What does a physical map show?
A physical map shows landforms and water: mountains, plateaus, lowlands, rivers, lakes and seas. This map uses elevation colors and hill shading instead of coloring each country separately.
Can I download physical map of south america without labels?
Yes. The blank relief map retains the terrain, rivers and outlines but removes place names. Both versions are available as PNG and PDF; the PDF uses A4 paper and can be scaled to US Letter.
Use this map
You can download, print and share this map for free, in class, in school projects, in presentations and on websites, as long as you credit the source: Physical map of South America · Atlas of Maps (atlasofmaps.com), license CC BY 4.0.
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