Paraguay Departments

Paraguay is a landlocked country in the middle of South America, cut in two by the Río Paraguay. Nearly everyone lives in the green, rolling east, and the dry scrubland of the Chaco to the west is most of the area and almost none of the people. Its first tier is the departments, which are the units its census, its plates and its maps are organised around, with the capital, Asunción, a district of its own.

The quiz: Name to place, on the map
Grouped by: The Eastern region and the Chaco, either side of the Río Paraguay
In the game: 18 departments

Start

What you are looking at

The departments (departamentos) of Paraguay, with Asunción drawn as the capital district. Most are named for their main town or their river, and the ones in the east are a patchwork of small and medium shapes packed around the capital. The three in the Chaco are huge, and between them they take up about sixty percent of the country.

The map has one big idea. The Río Paraguay runs north to south through the middle of the country and marks the line between the two halves, which Paraguayans call the Región Oriental and the Región Occidental. The river also makes Asunción's position easy to remember: the capital sits on its east bank, at the point where it turns to meet Argentina, with Central wrapped around it.

The groups are those two halves. They are a way to learn the map a piece at a time, and the country does not publish them as a classification of its departments.

How to place one

Split the map at the river. Everything west of the Río Paraguay is the Chaco: Alto Paraguay in the north, Boquerón in the middle and Presidente Hayes along the river.
Find the capital and its ring. Asunción is a speck on the river, and Central is the department around it. Cordillera, Paraguarí and Ñeembucú spread out south and east.
Read the east in bands. Concepción and Amambay are the north, along the Brazilian border, with San Pedro below them and Canindeyú on the east edge. Alto Paraná is the Paraná river border, Itapúa and Misiones are the south on the Argentine side.

Every department, by group

Eastern region15 departments: Alto Paraná, Amambay, Asunción, Caaguazú, Caazapá, Canindeyú, Central, Concepción, Cordillera, Guairá, Itapúa, Misiones, Ñeembucú, Paraguarí, San Pedro
Chaco3 departments: Alto Paraguay, Boquerón, Presidente Hayes

Worked examples

Asunción

The smallest of them

Asunción is the capital district, and a speck beside the huge departments of the Chaco. Look for the river bend on the east bank, and tap just inside it.

Alto Paraguay

The one at the top

Alto Paraguay is the department at the top of the map, in the Chaco, on the borders with Bolivia and Brazil. It is huge and has very few people.