Geographical features

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Mercosur region is highly urbanized, containing some megalopolis such as Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. These global cities are important trade centers, and that is the reason why Argentina and Brazil are much more influential in Mercosur than the other countries. 

Mercosur has a population of 264,347,840 inhabitants and has its headquarters in Montevideo, Uruguay. The bloc has a total area of 13,771,194km2 and its nominal GDP is about US$4.437 trillion in 2018. Its HDI in 2017 was 0.772 which is actually a high value. 

Natural resources
Forestry is a major economic activity for tropical South America, especially the Amazon River basin. Lumber for trees such as mahogany and rosewood is exported to foreign markets for use in cabinets and floors. Lower-grade woods are important to the construction in South America. Eucalyptus is the most familiar of these less-expensive woods and despite not being native to South America, it grows at an incredibly quick rate.

The mining industry is an important economic engine in South America. Iron and steel are used in construction and machinery and the continent contains about one-fifth of the reserves. 
Other important metal deposits include tin, used to solder metallic surfaces, and also zinc. Brazil and Bolivia are major producers of tin. Lead and zinc deposits are found primarily in higher elevations of Bolivia, southern Brazil and northern Argentina.

Oil and gas extraction is the dominant industry of Venezuela, with major deposits found around lake Maracaibo and El Tigre.

From:  http://wc4latinamerica.weebly.com/natural-resources.html

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Origins and History Of Mercusor

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Mercosur can be said to have begun with the 1979 Tripartite Agreement with Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. This agreement was carried out to resolve disputes around South American Water reserves. Notably the Itaipu Dam and the Parana River. This was very important because according to Gian Luca Gardini, this event was "the first manifestation" of these relations (Gardini, Making Sense Of Rapproachment Between Argentina And Brazil, 1979-82, 2006) . This in turn had lead to both Argentina and Brazil's governments discussing in more detail on measures of integration. Which can be backed up further in the 1980's because Brazil could see the benefit of international co-operation with Argentina from a military standpoint due to the shift towards a militaristic international focus which shifted further with the Constituent Assembly (Mariano, 2012) . This is very important because within this institution South American integration was an issue that was brought to ...
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Comparison with another region: the ALBA

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Nowadays, Mercosur is not the only trade organization in South America. We can also find others like the Andean Community, the CARICOM (Caribbean Community) or the ALBA-TCP (Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America – People’s Trade Treaty). In this section, some main differences and similarities between Mercosur and the ALBA-TCP will be explained. *Suspended country ** Country in process of integration Source: Mercosur.int Source: Alterinfo.net Countries and languages The ALBA is constituted by Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Nicaragua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Venezuela (Ecuador made part of it in the past), as we can see in the second picture. Mercosur, as it has already been explained and as we can see in the first picture, is constituted by Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay (Venezuela is currently suspended from its membership and Bolivia is in the process of integration, so it...
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References

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The references are in APA format. Books Arnaud, V. (1996).  Mercosur: UE, NAFTA y los procesos de integración regional . Buenos Aires: Abeledo-Perrot The book, written by an Argentinian politologist specialised in international relations, contains lots of information about the cooperation between the members of Mercosur and also makes a comparison between Mercosur and the EU or NAFTA. Barraza, A., & Jardel, S. (1998).  Mercosur: aspectos jurídicos y económicos  (pp. 91-166). Buenos Aires: Ediciones Ciudad Argentina. This book explains the main economic features of the region. However, as it’s dated from 1998 (20 years back), we can only use its information to talk about the initial trade patterns between the countries but not about their current exchanges. Díaz Barrado, C. (2009).  Contribuciones de la educación a la integración regional: el caso del Mercosur educativo (pp. 13-20). [Madrid]: Plaza y Valdés. This book explains the e...
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