The Amazon River

The mouth of the Amazon river is located in North Eastern Brazil. Its source is in Calillona in Peru. The Amazon river is 6280km in length, which makes it the second longest river in the world. The Amazon may not be the longest river in the world, but it is the widest. At any one point in time it has the highest amount of water flowing down it.


The Amazon produces approximately 20% of all the water that the world`s rivers puor into the ocean. Thousands of tributaries join the main branch of the Amazon river, and through these tributaries the Amazon colects water from over 40% of South America`s landmass. 17 of the tributaries that the Amazon collects from are over 1600km long.

The Amazon is 11km wide in the dry season and 40km wide during the flood season. The reason it is wider during the flood season is because it widens to cover its bank and its islands in the middle of the river. The floods leave sediment and this enriches the soil.

There are over 300 species of mammals in the Amazon rainforest, thousands of fish, ten thousands of trees and nearly a hundred thousand other plant species. There are Jaguars, Toucans, Piranhas, many different types of Frogs, Macaws, Anacondas and many other different species of mammal and fish.


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http://video.google.com


This is a video of the Amazon river.