Landlocked in central South America, the Paraguay River divides the country into a hilly, forested east and a flat plain (known as the Chaco) in the west. The Chaco, marshy near the river and turning semidesert farther west, takes up 60 percent of the country but contains only two percent of the people. Paraguayans, mostly a mixture of Spanish and Guaraní Indian, are the most racially homogeneous in South America. Most understand Spanish but prefer to speak Guaraní.
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