What is the longest cave in South America?

What is the longest cave in South America? Toca da Boa Vista in Brazil. This immense cave lies in Bahia, in northeastern Brazil, near the municipality of Campo Formoso, and is recognized as the longest known cave on the continent.

Exploration has continually extended its mapped passages. Earlier surveys recorded tens of kilometers, while more recent reports have placed the cave at approximately 114 kilometers of mapped passages. Exact figures can change as speleologists discover and survey additional sections, but Toca da Boa Vista remains the standard answer to this trivia question.

The cave developed in ancient carbonate rocks of the São Francisco Craton. Its underground passages are associated with complex karst processes, including dissolution of soluble rock by groundwater. Toca da Boa Vista is also important scientifically because it contains fossil material and offers evidence about the region’s geological and biological history.

A nearby cave, Toca da Barriguda, is sometimes discussed alongside it because the two systems share geological origins and are among South America’s longest caves. They are not automatically treated as one connected cave, however. That distinction helps explain why Toca da Boa Vista is listed separately as the continent’s longest known cave.