Elevation extremes: lowest point: Salinas Chicas -40 m highest point: Cerro Aconcagua 6,962 m
Natural resources: fertile plains of the pampas, lead, zinc, tin, copper, iron ore, manganese, petroleum, uranium
Land use: arable land: 9% permanent crops: 1% permanent pastures: 52% forests and woodland: 19% other: 19% (1993 est.)
Irrigated land: 17,000 sq km (1993 est.)
Natural hazards: San Miguel de Tucuman and Mendoza areas in the Andes subject to earthquakes; pamperos are violent windstorms that can strike the Pampas and northeast; heavy flooding
Environment-current issues: erosion results from inadequate flood controls and improper land use practices; irrigated soil degradation; desertification; air pollution in Buenos Aires and other major cities; water pollution in urban areas; rivers becoming polluted due to increased pesticide and fertilizer use
Environment-international agreements:
party to: Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic Treaty,
Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species,
Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine
Dumping, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution,
Wetlands
signed, but not ratified: Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Marine Life
Conservation
Geography-note: second-largest country in South America (after
Brazil); strategic location relative to sea lanes between South
Atlantic and South Pacific Oceans (Strait of Magellan, Beagle Channel,
Drake Passage)
@Argentina:People
Population: 36,265,463 (July 1998 est.)