The Andes are the location of several high plateaus—some of which host major cities such as Quito, Bogotá, Cali, Arequipa, Medellín, Bucaramanga, Sucre, Mérida, El Alto, and La Paz.

The term cordillera comes from the Spanish word cordel "rope"[2] and is used as a descriptive name for several contiguous sections of the Andes, as well as the entire Andean range, and the combined mountain chain along the western part of the North and South American continents.

As the uplift of the Andes created a rain shadow on the western fringes of Chile, ocean currents and prevailing winds carried moisture away from the Chilean coast.

It was during the Cretaceous Period that the Andes began to take their present form, by the uplifting, faulting, and folding of sedimentary and metamorphic rocks of the ancient cratons to the east.

Across the 1,000-kilometer-wide (620 mi) Drake Passage lie the mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula south of the Scotia Plate, which appear to be a continuation of the Andes chain.

Despite being a typical location for calc-alkalic and subduction volcanism, the Andean Volcanic Belt has a large range of volcano-tectonic settings, such as rift systems, extensional zones, transpressional faults, subduction of mid-ocean ridges, and seamount chains apart from a large range of crustal thicknesses and magma ascent paths, and different amount of crustal assimilations.

The Andes Mountains host large ore and salt deposits, and some of their eastern fold and thrust belts act as traps for commercially exploitable amounts of hydrocarbons.

Porphyry copper in the western slopes of the Andes has been generated by hydrothermal fluids (mostly water) during the cooling of plutons or volcanic systems.

Early Mesozoic and Neogene plutonism in Bolivia's Cordillera Central created the Bolivian tin belt as well as the famous, now mostly depleted, deposits of Cerro Rico de Potosí.

The Andes Mountains, initially inhabited by hunter-gatherers, experienced the development of agriculture and the rise of politically centralized civilizations, which culminated in the establishment of the century-long Inca Empire.

In the tide of anti-imperialist nationalism, the Andes became the scene of a series of independence wars in the 19th century, when rebel forces swept through the region to overthrow Spanish colonial rule.

Since the Dry Andes extend from the latitudes of the Atacama Desert to the area of the Maule River, precipitation is more sporadic, and there are strong temperature oscillations.

Along with several Interandean Valles, they are typically dominated by deciduous woodland, shrub and xeric vegetation, reaching the extreme in the slopes near the virtually lifeless Atacama Desert.

[33] The vicuña and guanaco can be found living in the Altiplano, while the closely related domesticated llama and alpaca are widely kept by locals as pack animals and for their meat and wool.

The crepuscular (active during dawn and dusk) chinchillas, two threatened members of the rodent order, inhabit the Andes' alpine regions.

[37] Other animals found in the relatively open habitats of the high Andes include the huemul, cougar, foxes in the genus Pseudalopex,[35][36] and, for birds, certain species of tinamous (notably members of the genus Nothoprocta), Andean goose, giant coot, flamingos (mainly associated with hypersaline lakes), lesser rhea, Andean flicker, diademed sandpiper-plover, miners, sierra-finches and diuca-finches.

[37] These forest-types, which includes the Yungas and parts of the Chocó, are very rich in flora and fauna, although few large mammals exist, exceptions being the threatened mountain tapir, spectacled bear, and yellow-tailed woolly monkey.

Devastated by European diseases and by civil war, the Incas were defeated in 1532 by an alliance composed of tens of thousands of allies from nations they had subjugated (e.g. Huancas, Chachapoyas, Cañaris) and a small army of 180 Spaniards led by Francisco Pizarro.

One of the few Inca sites the Spanish never found in their conquest was Machu Picchu, which lay hidden on a peak on the eastern edge of the Andes where they descend to the Amazon.

In modern times, the largest cities in the Andes are Bogotá, with a metropolitan population of over ten million, and Santiago, Medellín, Cali, and Quito.

Other cities in or near the Andes include Bariloche, Catamarca, Jujuy, Mendoza, Salta, San Juan, Tucumán, and Ushuaia in Argentina; Calama and Rancagua in Chile; Cochabamba, Oruro, Potosí, Sucre, Tarija, and Yacuiba in Bolivia; Arequipa, Cajamarca, Cusco, Huancayo, Huánuco, Huaraz, Juliaca, and Puno in Peru; Ambato, Cuenca, Ibarra, Latacunga, Loja, Riobamba, and Tulcán in Ecuador; Armenia, Cúcuta, Bucaramanga, Duitama, Ibagué, Ipiales, Manizales, Palmira, Pasto, Pereira, Popayán, Rionegro, Sogamoso, Tunja, and Villavicencio in Colombia; and Barquisimeto, La Grita, Mérida, San Cristóbal, Tovar, Trujillo, and Valera in Venezuela.

The cities of Caracas, Valencia, and Maracay are in the Venezuelan Coastal Range, which is a debatable extension of the Andes at the northern extremity of South America.

[40] The rough terrain has historically put the costs of building highways and railroads that cross the Andes out of reach of most neighboring countries, even with modern civil engineering practices.

Because of the tortuous terrain in places, villages and towns in the mountains—to which travel via motorized vehicles is of little use—are still located in the high Andes of Chile, Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador.

Locally, the relatives of the camel, the llama, and the alpaca continue to carry out important uses as pack animals, but this use has generally diminished in modern times.

Coca, despite eradication programs in some countries, remains an important crop for legal local use in a mildly stimulating herbal tea, and illegally for the production of cocaine.

Although Andean Amerindian peoples crafted ceremonial jewelry of gold and other metals, the mineralizations of the Andes were first mined on a large scale after the Spanish arrival.

Regardless of the name, Polylepis is a high-Andean genus encompassing up to 45 species of trees and shrubs distributed across the South American Andes, from Venezuela to Patagonia, found up to 5,000 meters above sea level.

[45] In 2000, biologist Constantino Aucca founded Ecoan, an NGO promoting conservation of threatened species and endangered Andean ecosystems.

During a visit to Peru in 2018, Aucca invited Kaiser to the Queuña Raymi festival, where Cusco communities engage in queñual reforestation.