Key Facts about Amazon River

About the Amazon River:

• It is the world's largest river by water volume and width.
• It is the second-longest river in the world after the Nile.
• Course:
  • Its journey begins high in the Andes Mountains.
  • The river then makes its way east through thousands of miles of rainforests and lowlands until it empties into the Atlantic Ocean on the northeastern coast of Brazil.
• Length: 6,400 km
• Width: During the dry season, the width of the Amazon River can be 4 km to 5 km in some places – and in the wet season, this can increase to 50 km.
• Drainage:
  • It has the largest drainage area of any river system.
  • Its watershed spans the countries of Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, and Bolivia.
  • Roughly two-thirds of the Amazon’s main stream and by far the largest portion of its basin are within Brazil.
• Water Discharge:
  • The Amazon releases high amounts of freshwater into the Atlantic Ocean at 300,000 m3 per second.
  • It accounts for one-fifth of the total volume of freshwater entering the oceans globally.
• Tributaries:
  • It has more than 1,100 tributaries, of which seventeen measures over 1,500-kilometers long.
  • Notable tributaries include the Rio Negro, the Madeira River, and the Xingu River, among many others.
• The Amazon Rainforest, which represents about half of the Earth’s remaining rainforest, also constitutes its single largest reserve of biological resources.
• It is sometimes referred to as the "lungs of the Earth" due to its role in regulating the planet's oxygen and carbon cycles.