Wiktionary
n. A high plateau.
Wikipedia
The Altiplano (Spanish for "high plain"), Andean Plateau or Bolivian Plateau, in west-central South America, where the Andes are at their widest, is the most extensive area of high plateau on Earth outside Tibet. The bulk of the Altiplano lies within Bolivian and Peruvian territory while its southern parts lie in Chile and Argentina.
The Altiplano plateau hosts several cities like El Alto, La Paz, Puno, Oruro, Potosí, and Cuzco. The northeastern Altiplano is more humid than the southwestern, the latter of which hosts several salares, or salt flats, due to its aridity. At the Bolivia-Peru border lies Lake Titicaca, the largest lake in South America.
The Altiplano was the site of several Pre-Columbian cultures including the Tiawanaku and the Inca Empire. Spain conquered the region in the 16th century.
Major economic activities in the Altiplano include mining, llama and vicuña herding, and services in the cities. There is a fair amount of international tourism.
There are several Altiplanos (high plains in Spanish, or flat highlands in the mountains) in the Americas. Altiplano may refer to:
- the Bolivian Altiplano, or Puna, an Andean highland in Bolivia, Perú, and Chile
- the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, an Andean highland in central Colombia
- the Mexican Altiplano, Mexico
- Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1 "Altiplano", a maximum security federal prison in Mexico
- the Altiplano Nariñense, another Andean highland located in the southern Nariño Department of Colombia
- the Altiplano de Granada, in Andalucia, southern Spain
- Altiplano (film), 2009 film
Altiplano is a film by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth starring Magaly Solier, Jasmin Tabatabai and Olivier Gourmet. It takes places on three continents in five different languages. It tells the stories of two women in mourning and how their destinies merge.
Usage examples of "altiplano".
This suggests that at some stage the whole of the Altiplano was forced upwards from the sea-bed, perhaps as part of the general terrestrial rising that formed South America as a whole.
From this, and much other evidence, geologists have deduced that the Altiplano is still gradually rising, but in an unbalanced manner with greater altitudes being attained in the northern part and lesser in the southern.
Some of these, such as the rise of the Altiplano from the floor of the ocean, certainly took place in remote geological ages, before the advent of human civilization.
There was puzzling evidence from all over the Altiplano that agricultural experiments of an advanced and scientific nature had been carried out, with great ingenuity and dedication, to try to compensate for the deterioration of the climate.
Sometime in the past the entire Altiplano, with its lakes, rose from the bottom of the ocean .
Her Altiplano conscience worried about the quickness with which her retrained neurons pushed away that momentary pang of guilt, and she grinned mentally at it.
I said, would be some excuse, if you were not from a prominent family on Altiplano, and if you had not previously commented on the greater formality of manners there.
I first saw clearly the great glacier among the mountains to the southwest, which was to give us a pathway from the sea level of the Barrier up to the altiplano, ten thousand feet above.
And when at last we got up onto the altiplano, the great interior plateau, it was Zoe who called it the pampa, and maintained that we walked there among vast herds of invisible cattle, transparent cattle pastured on the spindrift snow, their gauchos the restless, merciless winds.
Anyway, a year ago, some Spiders were using abandoned mines in the altiplano south of Calorica, trying to find a difference between gravitational mass and inertial mass.
Even in those years, only the most foolhardy explorers poked themselves over the altiplano rim of the bowl.
I began to wonder about that huge open-pit mining operation the Kindred started on the altiplano just a year after the expedition.
Now the heli flew low and fast across the altiplano, as if fearless of hostile observation from above.
Standing there in the darkness, high in the mountains of the altiplano, he remembered the dust of San Diego the day Flor Trujillo died.
The poster of the blond beauty hung on the wall at the foot of his bed, where he could gaze upon her night and day, her smile and her long tanned legs transporting him from his miserable duty in the altiplano, from the garrison in Azatlan.