How to draw South-America-focused map using matplotlib basemap

Note that matplotlib basemap is deprecated in favour of cartopy !

Also see:

This code allows you to draw an map that is focused on South America using matplotlib basemap:

my_map = Basemap(projection='ortho', lat_0=-13, lon_0=-55, resolution='l')

Complete example code

This code reproduces the image shown above:

from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
my_map = Basemap(projection='ortho', lat_0=-13, lon_0=-55, resolution='l')
my_map.drawcoastlines(linewidth=1)
my_map.drawcountries(linewidth=0.5)

# Make plot larger
plt.gcf().set_size_inches(20, 10)
# Save to file
plt.savefig("South America.svg")