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“An Island Surrounded by Land” 11

Water hyacinths grow along the Paraguay River, the fifth-longest waterway in South America.

Across the Paraguay River, the Chaco region is a flat, featureless plain that makes up nearly two-thirds of the country’s area but holds less than 5 percent of its population. It starts out as marshland in the Lower Chaco, clos- est to the river. The Estero Patiño, the largest swamp in the country, is locat- ed there. Further west, near the border with Bolivia, is the Upper Chaco. The land here is drier, covered by parched plains or scrub forest with dwarf trees and small bushes. The Pilcomayo River, the longest tributary of the Paraguay River, runs from Bolivia to near Asunción—Paraguay’s capital city—then continues south. It forms Paraguay’s southern border with Argentina. Climate Because Paraguay is located in the Southern Hemisphere, it experiences summer when residents of the United States are in the midst of winter; sim- ilarly, Paraguay’s winter coincides with America’s summer. In Paraguay,