However, Argentine mineral resources, especially offshore deposits of petroleum and natural gas, have assumed increasing importance in recent decades, with the value of petroleum products now exceeding food processing in value. The manufacture of textiles, transportation equipment, industrial chemicals, and iron and steel, centered in Buenos Aires, now employs about one-fifth of the national labor force. The 1995 estimated population of Argentina was 34,264,000. The dominant physical feature of Chile is the Andes Mountains, which extend the entire length of the country. Chile is rich in mineral resources, chiefly because of the size of the deposits rather than because of the diversity of minerals.
Copper is by far the most important mineral.
Others include nitrates, iron ore, coal, molybdenum, manganese, petroleum and natural gas, silver, and gold. Chile is one of the leading industrial nations in Latin America as well as one of its largest mineral producers. Manufacturing is largely based on the refining and processing of the country's mineral, agricultural, and forestry resources. The 1995 estimated population of Chile is 14,237,000. Once a predominantly agricultural nation producing coffee,rubber and sugar, Brazil experienced rapid industrial growth in the 1960s and 1970s, so that by the 1980s it had a diversified modern economy producing a vast array of products such as machinery and transportation equipment, food processing, textiles and clothing.