Pacaraima Mountains
large mountain range between Brazil and Venezuela
The Pacaraima or Pakaraima Mountains (Portuguese: Serra de Pacaraima, Spanish: Sierra de Pacaraima) are a mountain range primarily in southwestern Guyana, and into northern Brazil and eastern Venezuela.
Geography
The range extends from west to east for over 800 kilometres (500 mi). Its highest peak is Mount Roraima at 2,810 metres (9,220 ft) above sea level, a tepui surrounded by cliffs 300 metres (980 ft) high.
It is geologically part of the Guayana Shield and biogeographically part of the Guayana Highlands.The mountains form the divide between the Orinoco Valley to the north and the Amazon Basin to the south. They also serve as a natural boundary in the east–west direction, where they extend 800 kilometres (500 mi) to form a border marker between Brazil and southeastern Venezuela and between Brazil and west central Guyana.
Geology
The Pacaraimas are a sandstone plateau underlain by a horizontal precambrian marine strata that arose in post-cretaceous time. Erosion of the sandstone (the Roraima Supergroup) results in dramatic escarpments, the individual remnants of which are called tepuis. Mount Roraima, Mount Ayanganna and Mount Wokomung are some of the more well-known examples.
Numerous rivers originate in these mountains and on their way down they plunge spectacularly to form some picturesque waterfalls. A beautiful example of this is the Kaieteur Falls in Guyana.
The public source identifies “Pacaraima Mountains” as large mountain range between Brazil and Venezuela. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Pacaraima, Mountains and large.
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Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1530786.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pacaraima Mountains” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.