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| | America - CentralYou need to select a country or province/state in order to view birding hotspots. Please select from the menu on the left. |
| | | | | | | Eight countries share the long land bridge that stretches from the southern border of the United States to the northern border of Colombia. The giant of the group, Mexico, five times the size of the other seven countries combined, though not usually considered a part of Central America, shares with its southern neighbors many important characteristics, linguistically, religiously, and to some extent culturally. Taken as a whole, the area is biologically highly diverse. Stretching from well within the United States, an arid and often desert-like habitat stretches south along the west side of the region all the way to the northwestern section of Costa Rica. The arid habitat ends only in the Carara area west of San Jose. Along the east coast a Caribbean influenced band of habitat, which crosses the border into Texas, reaches down from its drier section in Texas and northeastern Mexico through increasingly wet subtropical habitats all the way to Colombia. Separating these two, and contributing greatly to the diversity of the region, a discontinuous series of mountain ridges runs from the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico to the Cordillera de Talamanca of Costa Rica and Panama. These mountains not only provide homes for a variety of middle and upper altitude species, but form a barrier to the wet air masses of the Caribbean area, making their western slopes and the areas bordering the Pacific drier than they would otherwise be.
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| | | | | Despite the common elements that most of them share, the countries of Central America are politically distinct, indeed they often find it difficult to cooperate on a variety of issues. And despite the general widespread use of Spanish, there is also linguistic diversity. English is the language most widely used in Belize, and there are outposts of English speakers in countries like Costa Rica. Large numbers of people in Central America (and Mexico) speak native American languages. Their populations also differ ethnically. In Costa Rica the indigenous native population did not long survive the arrival of Europeans. Its ethnic diversity is traceable to immigration from neighboring areas in the Caribbean and neighboring states. Guatemala, by contrast, has a high proportion of people descended from Mayan ancestors. In short, the region has great diversity hidden in part by some widely shared traits. | | | |
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