CORDILLERA  , a

Spanish term for a range or chain of mountains, derived from the Old Spanish cordilla, the diminutive of cuerda, a cord or rope . The name was first given to the Andes ranges of South America, Las Cordilleras de los Andes, and applied to the extension of the system into Mexico . In North America the parallel ranges of mountains running between and including the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada are known as the " Cordilleras," and that part of the western continent crossed by them has been termed the " Cordilleran region." Although the name has been applied to the eastern mountain system of Australia, the word is not, outside America, used as a generic term for parallel ranges of mountains .