Cordillera

A cordillera is a chain or network of mountain ranges, such as those in the west coast of the Americas. The term is borrowed from Spanish, where the word comes from cordilla, a diminutive of cuerda ('rope'). The term is most commonly used in physical geography and is particularly applied to the various large mountain systems of the American Cordillera, such as the Andes of South America, and less frequently to other mountain ranges in the "ridge" that rims the Pacific Ocean. In Colombia and Vene...