Paraguay

Founded in 1537, Paraguay's capital and largest city sits at the confluence of the Paraguay and Pilcomayo Rivers, bearing layers of Spanish colonial, Baroque and modern architecture along a low river bluff.

Paraguay's third-largest city sits on the southern bank of the Paraná River opposite Argentina's Posadas, acting as a commercial bridge between the two countries and hosting the country's most celebrated Carnival celebration each summer.

Straddling the Paraná River between Paraguay and Brazil, the Itaipú Dam is the world's second-largest hydroelectric power station by generation output and a symbol of the complex engineering and geopolitical bargain that shaped modern Paraguay.

The ruins of La Santísima Trinidad del Paraná are the largest and most architecturally complete surviving example of the Jesuit reductions — self-governing indigenous communities established in the 17th and 18th centuries across the Río de la Plata basin.

The Paraguayan Chaco covers approximately 60 percent of Paraguay's territory as the southernmost extension of the Gran Chaco, a vast flatland of semi-arid scrub, palm savannah and isolated waterholes that is one of South America's most sparsely populated and ecologically significant regions.

At 12,365 hectares, Paraguay's largest protected area occupies a range of hills near the Brazilian border where the War of the Triple Alliance ended in 1870 with the death of Marshal Francisco Solano López.