Gran Chaco

Gran Chaco
Landscape in the Gran Chaco, Chaco Boreal, Paraguay
Approximate location and borders of the Gran Chaco. The natural border to the west is the Andes and, to the east, the Paraguay River; its northern and southern borders are less well-defined. (Underlying map taken from the CIA World Factbook)
Countries	Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil
Elevation	310 m (1,020 ft)

The Gran Chaco (Quechua: chaku, "hunting land") is a sparsely populated, hot and semi-arid lowland natural region of the Río de la Plata basin, divided among western Bolivia, Paraguay, northern Argentina and a portion of the Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul, where it is connected with the Pantanal region. This land is sometimes called the Chaco Plain.

The Gran Chaco is about 647,500 km² (250,000 sq mi) in size, though estimates differ. It is located west of the Paraguay River and east of the Andes, and is mostly an alluvial sedimentary plain shared among Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina. It stretches from about 17° to 33° South latitude and between 65° and 60° West longitude, though estimates differ.

Historically the Chaco has been divided in three main parts: the Chaco Austral or Southern Chaco, south of the Bermejo River and inside Argentinian territory, blending into the Pampa region in its southernmost end; the Chaco Central or Central Chaco between the Bermejo and the Pilcomayo River to the north, also now in Argentinian territory; and the Chaco Boreal or Northern Chaco, north of the Pilcomayo up to the Brazilian Pantanal, inside Paraguayan territory and sharing some area with Bolivia.

Locals sometimes divide it today by the political borders, giving rise to the terms Argentinian Chaco, Paraguayan Chaco and Bolivian Chaco. (Inside Paraguay, people sometimes use the expression Central Chaco for the area roughly in the middle of the Chaco Boreal, where Mennonite colonies are established.)