Word: coastland
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Peru's coast is even more paradoxical than its mountains: it is a desert that blooms, an air-conditioned strand in the tropics. Only 10 to 100 miles wide, the coastland stretches for 1,400 miles. Rain is virtually unknown there, but 52 well-fed rivers poke down the plunging mountains. Dammed and channeled, this water turns the valleys green with sugar cane, ripens grapes for Peru's famed pisco brandy, grows the fine, long-staple cotton that is king of the country's exports. The Humboldt Current cools the whole coast, and as a crowning convenience...