Peru Geography

Geography and Climate of Peru

Peru is located in Western South America, bordering the Pacific Ocean, between Chile and Ecuador. It also shares borders with Colombia, Brazil and Bolivia.

The western coastal plains (costa) are separated from the eastern lowland jungle of the Amazon Basin (selva) by the high and rugged Andes in the center (sierra). On the border with Bolivia lies Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigable lake at 3821 m.

The combination of latitude and topography variations gives Peru a large diversity of climates. To the east, the Amazon Basin has a tropical climate which receives warm and rainy conditions all year round. Temperatures vary from 19-24 during the night and 27-35 during the day. Rainfall varies from 2000 to 4000 mm/year. The eastern slopes of the Andes lay among the wettest places on earth. Annual rainfall ranges from 3000 to 15000 mm and the temperatures from 14-20 C during the night and 24-32 C during the day.

The Andes shelter the largest variety of climates in the country. The climate is semi-arid in the valleys and moist in higher elevations and towards the eastern flanks. Rainfall varies from 200 to 1500 mm/year. The rainy season starts in October and ends in April. The rainiest months are January through March where travel can be sometimes affected. The western slopes are arid to semi-arid and receive rainfall only between January and March. Below 2500 m the temperatures vary between 5 and 15 degrees Celsius in the night versus 18-29 C in the day. Between 2500 and 3500 the temperatures vary from -5 to 12 C in the night and from 15 to 25 C during the day. Between 3500 and 4500 meters the temperature varies from -10 to 8 degrees Celsius during the night versus 10 to 20 degrees Celsius during the day.

The coast is desert with annual rainfall that varies from 5 mm/year near the Chilean border to 200 mm/year in the northern coast and near the Andes. The Sechura desert extends from the Chilean border to northern Peru, and the Tumbes-Piura dry forests occupy the northwestern coastal plain, extending into southern Ecuador. Summer (December through March) is warm and sunny with temperatures that vary from 17 to 24 C during the night and 25 to 36 during the day. Winter (June through September) is cool and cloudy with temperatures that vary from 8 to 16 C during the night and 16 to 24 C during the day.

Terrain: western coastal plain (costa), high and rugged Andes in center (sierra), eastern lowland jungle of Amazon Basin (selva)

Natural resources: copper, silver, gold, petroleum, timber, fish, iron ore, coal, phosphate, potash, hydropower

Land use:

arable land: 3%

permanent crops: 0%
permanent pastures: 21%

forests and woodland: 66%
other: 10% (1993 est.)

Irrigated land: 12,800 km² (1993 est.)

Environment
Current issues: deforestation (some the result of illegal logging); overgrazing of the slopes of the costa and sierra leading to soil erosion; desertification; air pollution in Lima; pollution of rivers and coastal waters from municipal and mining wastes
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International agreements: party to: Antarctic Treaty, Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Nuclear Test Ban, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Tropical Timber 83, Tropical Timber 94, Wetlands, Whaling; signed, but not ratified: Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol.

The unusual weather conditions in Peru are created mainly by two major offshore ocean currents - the cold Humbolt Current coming up from Chile and the Antarctic, which meets the warm, tropical El Niño current coming down from the Pacific along the Ecuadorian coast. The Humbolt is largely responsible for the dry desert coastline of Peru and Northern Chile, sending Pacific clouds up into the Andes where they precipitate as rain. Traditional Peruvian wisdom says that it only really rains on the Peruvian coast about once every twenty years or so, when the El Niño current pushes further down the coast, warming the seas and causing disruptive rains in the desert. These rains bring devastating floods to towns and settlements poorly prepared for torrential downpours and often inhabited by migrants from the mountains. However, the rains also bring the desert into bloom as all the wild flower seeds, preserved by the drought conditions, suddenly burst into life. Over the last few years, the Peruvian weather has been rather unsettled and El Niño has been acting even more unpredictably than usual, possibly as a result of global warming. However, it still rarely rains on the coast, although the Lima region does experience substantial smog, coastal fogs or mists and even drizzle, particularly between the months of May and November.

The climate in the Sierra and Selva regions can be fairly clearly divided into a wet season (Oct-April) and a dry season (May-Sept). There is, of course, some rain during the dry season, but it is much heavier and much more frequent in the wet season, when travel becomes much harder: roads are often impassable, flights are frequently cancelled or delayed due to poor conditions, and landslides affect trains and bus routes alike. Trekking in the mountains and canoeing on the Andean or jungle rivers are also much less enjoyable during the wet season than at other times of year. Equally frustrating - especially if you've travelled halfway across the world to be here - is the fact that some of the stupendous views, particularly those around Cusco and in the Cordillera Blanca, are often obscured by clouds at this time of year. If you want to visit several different regions of Peru, then your best bet is to travel round in the middle of the dry season between June and September.

Again, weather conditions have been quite unsettled in these regions over the last ten years or so, with the Altiplano zone, around Puno, being affected by serious droughts , which have left the water level of Lake Titicaca at its lowest for years.

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