Cordilleras

Cordilleras [Span., originally=little string], general name for the entire chain of mountain systems of W North America, extending from N Alaska to Nicaragua. The Cordilleras include the Rocky Mts., the ranges of the Great Basin, the Sierra Nevada, the Coast Ranges, and the Sierra Madre. The name Cordilleras was first applied to the similar systems of W South America, where the mountains stretching from Panama to Cape Horn are known locally as the Cordillera de los Andes (Andes Mts.). Historically geographers used the term cordillera for any extensive group of mountain systems.

cordillera
1. Broad assemblage of mountain ranges belonging to orogenic belts of different ages which formed originally at destructive plate margins.

2. System of mountain ranges, together with their related plateaux and intermontane basins. For example, the Cordillera of N. America includes all the mountain ranges and plateaux west of the Great Plains and of the Mexican lowlands.

3. Subsidiary complex of ranges within a mountain system, e.g. the eastern and western cordillera of the Andes.

4. Individual range, e.g. the Cordillera Patagonica of the southern Andes.

cordillera A Spanish word meaning ‘little cord’.

1. A broad assemblage of mountain ranges belonging to orogenic belts (see orogeny) of different ages, which formed originally at destructive plate margins.

2. A system of mountain ranges, together with their related plateaux and intermontane basins. For example, the Cordillera of North America includes all the mountain ranges and plateaux west of the Great Plains and the Mexican lowlands.

3. A subsidiary complex of ranges within a mountain system, e.g. the eastern and western cordillera of the Andes.

4. An individual range (e.g. the Cordillera Patagonica of the southern Andes).