Amazon river. Characteristics, description, map of the Amazon. The longest and deepest river in the world. Great Amazon River Name of the Amazon River

We welcome all readers of the site "I and the World"! If you are asked the question: where is the Amazon River? Can you answer through which countries it flows and on which mainland it is located? Where does it start and where does it end? In what direction is it flowing? In this article, we will try to answer these and other questions.

This incredible river is full of such surprises that you simply did not know about. Almost 20% of the oxygen for the surrounding world is produced by its forests, and reserves drinking water enough a large number of. It is so large that some tribes living on its shores are completely unfamiliar with civilization.

Without a doubt, the Amazon is the largest in South America. In what direction does it flow? Its waters flow from west to east, crossing almost the entire continent and flowing into Atlantic Ocean.

It has three sources: if we consider its length in km, then from one of them, the length will be over 7000. Most of it flows in Brazil, the rest of the distance belongs to Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. The total area of ​​its basin is almost the same as the entire continent of Australia.

The diet of the Amazon is quite diverse: from many tributaries, from precipitation, since the climate on the river is constantly humid. She also receives snow recharge. The world map clearly shows that the river is located almost on the equator, and a huge amount of precipitation falls here every year. And that's why it's so full of water. There are a huge number of rapids in this part, so there can be no talk of any shipping.

The nature of the current of the Amazon depends on the topography of the area through which it flows. At the beginning, the course is quite rough, because you have to make your way through the mountains and hills. Going down, the waters flow quite smoothly and calmly, due to the small slope of the terrain.

The photo shows that the Amazon is so overflowing that it looks more like a sea and reaches 80 km in width. But this figure cannot be compared with the width of the mouth - 325 km and a depth of 135 m.

Here are some pretty Interesting Facts. On the territory of Brazil, where the Amazon flows, they discovered a very long underground river just under the Amazon at a depth of 4 km. According to some signs, its width reaches 400 km, and the speed of the current is only 1 mm per second.

Animal world so diverse that more than half of all species living on our planet live here. And there are more than 10 million of them. The basin of the entire river is called the "kingdom of palm trees", because of all the plants, more than 800 species of palm trees grow here. In many photos and pictures, we see a variety of vegetation in its pool.

Opportunities for economic development are rather big. This is fishing, and shipping, and the construction of power plants, and its huge water reserves are used by man to irrigate farmland. And although the use of the river is not so great compared to its size, but even the smallest intervention in the life of the Amazon has a detrimental effect on the environment.

Which river is longer: the Volga, the Nile or the Amazon?

The Volga is about twice as short as the Amazon, although it is considered the longest in Europe. And the Nile River, which flows in Africa, is slightly inferior in length to the Amazon, so we also talked about the longest river in the world (although no one can accurately name the distance between these two rivers).

We tried to make for you beautiful description Amazon, tell about its inhabitants, about its features, in which countries it flows, where are the origins and mouth of this famous river, its length in kilometers.

If you want to go there, try to be more attentive to its dangers. And we say goodbye to you! See you soon! If you liked the article, please share with your friends.

The Amazon is one of the natural wonders of the planet, familiar to everyone from school. In terms of fame, this river can compete with the Egyptian Nile and the Indian Ganges. The unique ecosystem of the longest waterway on earth (more than 7 thousand km from the source of the Apachete) attracts thrill-seekers, exotics, South American flora and fauna, and just ordinary tourists who want to expand the boundaries of their travels.

Flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, the Amazon forms the largest delta in the world. The largest river island of Marajo, located just in the delta, the giant water lily Victoria regia, huge palm trees, the largest freshwater fish on the planet and the river dolphin are included in the list of Amazonian “rarities”.

It is believed that the Spanish conquistador Francisco de Orellana discovered the Amazon in the 16th century. Initially, the conqueror of the New World wanted to give the river his name, but eventually changed his mind. The name of the river is due to the mysterious tribe of female warriors who attacked Orellana's detachment. The real existence of the Amazons is currently being questioned. In their role could well be men with long hair.

Sources and tributaries

The main question that arises in disputes about Parana Tingo or the “Queen of the Rivers”, as the locals call the Amazon, is whether its waters are the longest on the planet, and, if so, where is the source of the river located. 15 years ago, in the mid 90s. 20th century, an international expedition, having gone to the Peruvian mountains, was able to give an exact answer, which is currently official version included in textbooks on geography.

The source of the Amazon is the Apachete stream, which, having gone a long enough way, merging with other streams and rivers, turns into Apurimac, and then through Ucayali - into the Amazon. It is noteworthy that the Ucayali River is located in Peru, as well as the Marañon River, which for a long time considered as the main source.

Before the expedition to the Andes, which put an end to the Amazon controversy, the Nile occupied the first place among the longest rivers on the planet, but stubborn South American explorers were able to prove that the Amazon is longer. The difference is literally a few hundred meters.

The number of tributaries that make the Queen of Rivers the most full-flowing on the planet is huge. Over five hundred rivers and rivulets flow into the Amazon. 9 are considered the largest, among them about 20 - more than 1.5 thousand km long. An interesting effect is associated with one of the tributaries: at the confluence of the Rio Negro, near the Brazilian city of Manaus, the Amazon is two-colored. Part of the water is white, part is dark. The light shade is due to the fact that the Amazon carries a large amount of silt.

Before the confluence with the Rio Negro, the Amazon has a completely different name - Solimões (that is the name of the river in Brazil) or Rio de Janeiro Marañon (Peruvian name).

Amazon Hotels

The main means of accommodation on the Amazon are lodges, and the lodges are very diverse in terms of service and quality of services - from modest 3 * to chic 5 *.

Flora and fauna of the Amazon

The navigable Amazon is the habitat of so many animals. Species diversity freshwater fish up to one third of total all over the earth. The most famous among the river inhabitants are the giant arapaima, the maximum known weight is 200 kg, the length is up to 3 m, and the piranhas, dangerous to people, from 13 cm to 40 cm in length. circumstances can cause harm to a person. Generally speaking, the local nature is extremely dangerous for bipeds, and stories about bloodthirsty caimans are not fiction, but harsh truth, although, as the natives testify, in order to get into their teeth, you must at least get out of big water and delve into the rainforests.

One of the main tourist attractions for travelers in the Amazon is catching piranhas for raw meat. Day and night canoe trips are also popular, during which you can get acquainted with the animal and plant world.

Almost the entire Amazon basin is framed by jungles covering the territory of nine South American states - Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, etc. The abundance of vegetation, in addition to the river itself, is responsible for the rains, which are huge here.

Amazon nature

Amazon cities

Most of the river flows through Brazil. The largest Brazilian port is Manaus, which is also the capital of the state of Amozanas. It is good to come here in order to see the natives, the jungle, watch how the Rio Negro flows into the Amazon and feel like a pioneer.

in Peru The largest city on the Amazon - Iquitos, a city in the middle of the selva, connected to civilization only by air and water transport. Houses on stilts, an Indian village, high humidity can be a real test for a city dweller accustomed to comfort.

The Indians call the Amazon "Parana-Thing", which means "Queen of the Rivers". Indeed, this river is in all respects the greatest in the world.

It carries a quarter of all the waters carried into the ocean by the rivers of our planet. And the area of ​​​​its basin - more than seven million square kilometers - allows you to place in it the entire mainland of Australia or a country like the United States.

At the mouth of the Amazon, the width of the Amazon reaches two hundred kilometers, and the depth is one hundred meters! Even near the Peruvian city of Iquitos, three and a half thousand kilometers from the mouth, the depth of the river is more than twenty meters, so ships get here.

The full flow of the Amazon is explained simply: it flows almost exactly along the equator, and the usual summer rainy season for these places alternately occurs in the northern hemisphere (in March-September), on its left tributaries, then in the southern (from October to April) - on the right tributaries.

Thus, the great river actually lives in a constant flood.

Until recently, it was not known exactly where the origins of the Amazon lie. Its length, together with the main of the two sources, the Ucayali River, was approximately determined at 6565 kilometers, which put the Queen of Rivers in second place in the world after the Nile, which is more than a hundred kilometers longer.

But an international expedition organized in 1995, having reached the upper reaches of the Ucayali, discovered that this source, in turn, is formed from the confluence of two rivers: Apurimac and Urubamba.

Coming to the source of the Alurimak River, the researchers determined that the total length of the entire grandiose water system Apurimac-Ucayali-Amazon - 7025 kilometers and, therefore, it is she who is the first in the world in length. The Nile with its sources the White Nile, Albert Nile, Victoria Nile, Lake Victoria Kageroy is almost three hundred kilometers shorter.

Seventeen of them are from 1800 to 3500 kilometers long. (This, for comparison, is the length of the Don and the Volga!) The huge mass of river water carried by the Amazon desalinates the sea 400 kilometers from the mouth.

The largest river island in the world, located in the Amazon delta - the island of Marajo, has an area of ​​​​48 thousand square kilometers, that is, larger than Switzerland or the Netherlands, and the entire delta is larger than Bulgaria in area.

The river gets its name Amazon after the confluence of the Ucayali with the Marañon River.

Both sources begin in the Andes and break through to the plain through narrow rocky gorges - pongo. At the bottom of these gorges there is no place even for a narrow path - it is a continuous bubbling ferocious stream with stones sticking out here and there, sometimes narrowing to twenty meters.

Particularly wayward character in Maranion. On the way from the mountains, he passes through 27 pongos. The lower, most formidable of them is Pongo de Manserice ("Gate of the Parrots"). Breaking through the last canyon, the river enters the vast plain of the Amazon and becomes navigable.

The Amazonian lowland, or Amazonia, is the greatest lowland on Earth. This is a vast realm of swamps and jungles, where the only roads are rivers.

However, these roads are enough in abundance - after all, the rivers of the Amazon are navigable for eight thousand kilometers.

During floods, when the level of the Amazon rises by twenty meters, low banks are flooded for 80-100 kilometers in the area.

Huge territories then represent an endless sea with trees sticking out of the water.

In normal times, the Amazon does not look like a giant river, because it breaks into many branches separated by islands.

There are also floating islands on the river, slowly moving downstream. They are formed by intertwined plant roots and fallen tree trunks, on which new vegetation has risen.

The slope of the Amazonian lowland is so small that the influence of ocean tides is noticeable here even 1000 kilometers from the mouth of the river.

A special feature of the Amazonian tides is the famous “pororoka”.

From the collision of a mighty river with a tidal wave going towards the Amazon, a high shaft is formed, topped with a foamy ridge. It rolls up the river with a loud rumble, sweeping away everything in its path.

Woe to a ship that does not have time to take shelter in a side channel or in a bay in advance - a roaring six-meter water wall will turn it over and sink it.

From time immemorial, the Indians have experienced a superstitious fear of this mysterious and formidable phenomenon, which seemed to them some kind of terrible monster, devastating the coast and terrifying with its bubbling roar.

Hence the name of the formidable shaft - pororoka ("thundering water").

The first end-to-end voyage across the Amazon from the Andes to the ocean was made in 1842 by the Spanish conquistador Francisco Orellana. For eight months, his detachment sailed along the river for almost six thousand kilometers.

Now it’s even hard to imagine what it cost the Spaniards this almost incredible journey across the entire continent without maps, without knowledge of the characteristics of the river and the languages ​​​​of local tribes, without food supplies, on a fragile home-made boat.

Crocodiles and anacondas, piranhas and river sharks - all these “charms” of the Amazon the Orellana squad had to experience, as they say, on their own skin.

More than once on the way, the Spaniards had a chance to face warlike Indians. In one place, at the mouth of the Trombetas River, the fighting was especially fierce.

And most of all, the conquistadors were struck by the fact that tall half-naked women armed with bows fought in the forefront of the Indian warriors.

They stood out for their fearlessness even against the background of their fellow tribesmen. The brave warriors reminded the Spaniards of the ancient myth of the Amazons - female warriors who did not know defeat.

Therefore, Orellana named the river Amazon.

Since then, many scientists and researchers have visited the great river.

The Frenchman Condamine, the German Humboldt, the Englishman Bates and the Russian traveler Langsdorf at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century managed to penetrate the jungle of the Amazon and discovered for science the amazing living world of the Queen of the Rivers and the surrounding humid forests.

The waters of the local rivers are home to 2,000 species of fish - a third of the diversity of the freshwater fish kingdom of the Earth. (In all rivers of Europe - only 300 species.)

Among the unique inhabitants of the Amazon is a giant five-meter pyraruku (or arapaima), reaching 200 kilograms of weight.

two meters electric eel, knocking a person down with a 300-volt current discharge, huge river rays with a deadly spike on their tail, a dangerous river shark and a small toothy piranha that terrifies the locals.

The aggressiveness of this predatory creature is indescribable. A hunter who has shot a wild boar or a tapir from a boat often does not have time to swim with a trophy in tow to the shore: from a hefty carcass, a flock of bloodthirsty fish leaves one skeleton.

It happens that for the successful passage of the herd across the river, the shepherds have to sacrifice one cow, which, having previously been injured, is brought into the water below the crossing.

While the piranhas deal with the victim, the rest of the animals have time to cross the ford. Even a vicious predator caught on a bait desperately wriggles in the hands of a fisherman, striving to bite off his finger with razor-sharp teeth.

There are also huge manatees in the Amazon - relatives of the sea cow, and river dolphins, and five-meter crocodiles - black caimans, the victims of which are often not only two-meter tapirs or miniature peccary pigs who came to the watering hole, but also careless hunters.

True, the Indians still say that "one is better big crocodile than three little piranhas"...

But perhaps the most famous inhabitant of the Amazonian waters is the monstrous anaconda water boa. There are anacondas up to 12 meters long and two meters in girth!

However, hunters talk about fifteen - and even eighteen-meter snakes. It is difficult even to imagine such a "living pipe" that could reach the ground, hanging from the roof of a six-story building.

Places where anacondas are found, and experienced Indian hunters bypass. Not a single animal in the selva (as the Amazonian forests are called in Brazil) can resist the two-hundred-kilogram giantess. Sometimes even jaguars swimming across the river become victims of the anaconda.

And on the smooth surface of calm oxbows and bays in the countless arms of the Amazon, one and a half meter leaves of the largest water lily in the world, Victoria Regia, sway. Round, with upturned edges, they resemble some strange green frying pans. On such a sheet, like Thumbelina, a child of twelve or fourteen years old can sit quietly.

Wet a tropical forest Amazonia is the richest in number of species of all forests growing on our planet. On ten square kilometers here you can count up to 1500 different types flowers, 750 species of trees, more than a hundred different mammals, 400 species of birds and many snakes, amphibians and insects.

Many of them are still unknown and not described.

Most big trees selva reaches 90 meters in height and 12 meters in girth. Even their names sound like music: bertolecia, mamorana, cinnamon, cedarella, babasu, rattan, hevea...

Many of them are of great value.

Tall Bertholets are famous for their delicious nuts. In one shell, weighing several kilograms, there are up to two dozen of these nuts.

They are collected only in calm weather, as the “packaging” torn off by the wind can lay down a careless picker on the spot.

The sweet and nutritious juice of the milk tree resembles milk in taste, and cocoa is obtained from the fruits of the chocolate tree.

Everyone, of course, has heard about the fruits of the melon tree - papaya, and about hevea, the main rubber plant modern world, and of the cinchona tree, whose bark provides humanity with the only remedy to relieve attacks of malaria, that scourge of the rainforests.

There are many trees in the selva with beautiful colored wood, like the pau-brazil mahogany, which gave the name to the largest country in South America. And the wood of the balsa tree is the lightest in the world. It is lighter than cork.

Indians build giant jangada rafts from balsa, floating timber down the Amazon, Rio Negro, Madeira and others. major rivers. Such rafts sometimes reach hundreds of meters in length and twenty in width, so that an entire village is sometimes placed on them.

But most of all in the Amazon of palm trees - over a hundred species! Almost all of them: coconut, babasu, tukuma, mukata, bakaba, zhupati and karana - benefit a person. Some - with their nuts, others - with wood, others - with fiber, fourth - with fragrant juice.

And only the rattan palm is mercilessly cursed by the inhabitants of the selva.

This is the longest tree on earth (sometimes it reaches three hundred meters!) - in essence, a liana. Its thin trunk is all dotted with sharp spikes.

Clinging to other trees with them, the rattan palm reaches up towards the sun. Intertwining tree branches and trunks, it forms absolutely impenetrable thorny thickets.

No wonder the Indians call it the "devil's rope."

Animals - inhabitants of the selva - are no less diverse than plants. This is the largest animal of the Amazon - the shy and cautious tapir, and the giant capybara - the world champion among rodents. (Imagine a good-natured “mouse” weighing two pounds!)

There are many monkeys here, and they are completely different from their counterparts from Africa or Asia. Among them is the creepy wakiri, or "death's head", whose white muzzle resembles the skull of a dead man.

This one and a half meter cat is not afraid to attack even two-meter anacondas!

And in December, ocelots arrange mating concerts at night, like our March cats.

The most inconspicuous and inactive beast of the selva is, of course,. He spends his whole life hanging with his back down on the branches of trees and slowly absorbing the foliage around him. In order not to move, he manages to turn his head not even 180, but 270 degrees!

This phlegmatic breathes only once every eight seconds. On land, if it happens to descend to the ground, the sloth moves at a speed of 20 centimeters per minute, as in slow motion filming.

The "agile simpleton", as the Brazilians jokingly call him, is a tasty prey for the jaguar, and for the ocelot, and for the boa constrictor, and even for the harpy eagle. The sloth is saved by the fact that in its wool ... algae start up, coloring its skin in a protective greenish color.

Because of this, the immobile sloth is almost invisible on the branch, and the predator often does not notice it.

Under the canopy of branches in the darkness of the night silently sweep vampire bats. Their small thin teeth are so sharp that a person bitten in a dream does not feel pain and only, waking up in the morning, finds that the pillow is covered in blood, and there is a tiny wound on the neck.

Of the hundreds of species of selva birds, the most famous in our country, of course, are tiny, the size of a bee,.

And huge, up to a meter in length, macaw parrots. Their bright plumage, as well as the sparkling wings of numerous butterflies, enliven the monotonous greenery of the forest.

And above the crowns of the trees, the most terrible feathered predator of the Amazon - the crested tropical eagle harpy-monkey-eater soars. Powerful muscles and five-centimeter claws make the harpy a real thunderstorm for small monkeys and sloths.

There are many snakes in the forests of the Amazon basin, including poisonous ones. It is no coincidence that Brazil ranks first in the world in terms of the number of people who die each year from snake bites. But the Indians have long tamed small boas and kept them in huts to protect them from rodents and snakes.

A huge tarantula spider strikes and terrifies.

It feeds on careless hummingbirds caught in its wide, like a fishing net, web. And Indian children, for the sake of mischief, sometimes put a rope loop on this spider and lead it around the village like a dog.

But the worst thing for the inhabitants of the selva is not formidable predators and Poisonous snakes and spiders, and small ants are Sakasaya. They live in large colonies underground, but from time to time they emerge from there in huge hordes and move through the forest in a deadly river, destroying all life in their path.

230 km northeast of Lima, from Lake Lavrikokha on a flat Bombon hill (4,300 m), stretching between Western and Eastern; first, it flows in meanders through a narrow mountain valley 220 km long, forming a series of waterfalls and rapids; only at Hen de Bracamoras, already after 700 km of stretch, it becomes navigable; after that, in an arc of 250 km, it turns to the northeast and east and cuts through the Cordillera with 13 streams, or pongo (gates). Near Rentema, it flows at an altitude of 378 m and widens to 1,600 m, then, after running through a space of 950 km, it enters the wooded under the tropics, where, no longer presenting obstacles to navigation, it continues on its way through the lowlands of Peru and for 3,650 km and falls under into . Its total length is 5,000 km.

mouth of the amazon consists of three main branches, forming the islands of Caviana and Mexiana, and near the island of Maraio has a width of 250 km. From this main estuary, called the Canal Braganza, or Rio Macapu, a whole series of branches run southward, of which the largest is called Tahapuru, joining with the Rio Gran Para, which flows into the ocean in the northeast. Lying between two main mouths about. Maraio has an area of ​​19,270 square km. Despite the mass of land washed off the coast, the Amazon does not form deltas at its mouth, on the contrary, it demolished several islets from it; it has many shoals, and therefore its course often changes. The headwaters of the river up to Tabatinga are called Tunguragua and Marañon, before the Rio Negro flows into it, it is called Solimoos, and further to the mouth - Amazonas. Common name The “Amazonian River” comes from a legend according to which a tribe of warlike women lived on its banks, or from the word “Amassona”, that is, the destroyers of boats, by which name the Indians in the 16th century called this tribe.

The Amazon has over 200 tributaries, of which 100 are navigable; 17 rivers of the first magnitude flow into it with a length of 1500-3500 km; all these rivers form a water area of ​​​​7,337,000, and with the exception of Tocantin - 6,500,000 km2. The eastern slope of the Andes from 3 ° north. latitude to 20 ° south latitude delivers its waters to the Amazon River. Its six tributaries are more significant in length and quantity of water, but even the largest of them, the Rio Negro and Madeira, when flowing into it, have no effect on its course; their waters only at first in a narrow space near the coast have a different color, then they completely merge with it. Almost all tributaries form deltas at their confluence, and often branches flow from the main river into tributaries, so that a continuous network of branches and islands is formed: it is possible, for example, to sail in boats from Santarem up to Obidos, bypassing the main course of the river. The branching of one of the side arms of Madeira, reconnecting with the Amazon after 350 km of its flow, formed its largest island, Ilga dos Tumpinambarana, with a space of 14,300 square km, on which the last remnants of the once powerful Tumpinambas people were preserved.

The entrance to the Amazon is very dangerous, since there are many shoals at the mouths. As a tropical river, the Amazon is the opposite of the Nile, since it does not pass through different belts, but flows almost its entire length in the direction and therefore over almost its entire space it overflows to incredible limits from falling rains. rainy time for the Amazon and all its mountain tributaries, it happens from January to March, and then the water, having risen by 10-15 m, protrudes from its banks for many miles. The flood lasts about 120 days. Stretching along the coast, virgin and animal world represents a wide variety of tropical countries.

The Amazon forms a whole network of shipping routes. From the mouth to the Andean slopes, it stretches along a continuous navigable road and near Tabatinga reaches a depth of 13 meters, so that the largest ships can navigate it. For sailing ships, it is also quite convenient, since almost all year round upper trade winds blow. Most of the tributaries are navigable for several hundred kilometers. The total length of all waterways, along which Brazilian steamers sail, was in 1873 9,900 km. The mouth of the Amazon was discovered in 1500 by Vincent Pinzon, and its source in 1537. Pizarro's companion, Francis de Orellana (1540-41), was the first to travel along it, setting in motion the legend of the country of the Amazons and the golden land, or Eldorado. Of the travelers who subsequently took up the study of this river, remarkable in their research are Pedro Texeira (1637-39), the Jesuit pastor Samuel Fritz (“the apostle of A. R.”), Condamine (1743-44), Spix and Marcius (1820), Mau (1826), Peppit (1831-32), Prussian Prince Adalbert (1842), Count of Castelnaud (1846); Particularly important in this respect are the expedition of Guerndon and Gibbon (1850-52), undertaken on behalf of the North American Union, and the scientific journey of Agassiz at the invitation of the Brazilian government.

Tributaries of the Amazon: major tributaries Amazons: on the right - Guallaga, Ucayali, Khavari, Hutagi, Hurua Teffe Aofi, Purus, Madeira, Tapaos, or Rio Preto, Xingu and Tocantin; on the left, Santiogo, Maroña, Pastaza, Napo, Putumayo, Yapura, Rio Negro with Cassikiare, Huatuma and Trombetas.

Inhabitants of the Amazon: The entire space, irrigated by the main stream and tributaries of the Rio Negro and Madeira, is divided into 4 different regions in terms of flora and fauna. The insect fauna is very rich, especially the ant one; , with the exception of monkeys, few. The Amazon is replete with aquatic plants and animals, caimans, dolphins, fish and very tasty turtles; the so-called “pira-ruku”, or red fish, is found in large numbers, reaching 2-2.5 m in length and 60-80 kilograms of weight; it is salted, dried and sold in whole batches in Para. There are a lot of manatees in the Amazon ( sea ​​cow), a genus of mammals that is widely distributed here.

freezing of the amazon: does not freeze.

Amazon is a record holder in many ways. This is the longest and deep river in the world is located in one of the most inaccessible and wild places on the planet. Despite all modern technologies and achievements, its pool has never been fully explored and holds many secrets. Where is the Amazon located? In which countries does it take place? You will learn all the details and interesting facts about it from our article.

Where is the Amazon River located?

The largest waterway in the world is located in South America. It starts in Peru and extends to the eastern coast of Brazil, crossing almost the entire mainland in width.

Local Indians call it the Great River, and it is well deserved. Branching into hundreds of branches and tributaries, it collects its waters from 40% of the mainland area. The Amazon channel runs mainly through Brazil and a little through Peru, but an extensive network of streams joining it also covers Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador.

The river is considered the most full-flowing in the world. Its basin covers an area of ​​7.2 million km 2, which is almost equal to the size of Australia. On average, its annual flow is 7,000 km 3, or 15% of the flow of all rivers on the planet. In a second, it throws out 200 thousand cubic meters of water. Even the Atlantic Ocean (where the Amazon flows into) cannot resist such a quantity, therefore, within a radius of 300-500 kilometers, its waters are heavily desalinated and clouded.

Controversial length

When asked which river is the longest, different answers usually follow. This is due to the fact that it is extremely difficult to determine the size of streams and for this you need to know exactly where they start from and at what point they end. For example, four rivers fight for the title of the source of the Amazon: Apurimac, Marathon, Marenyon and Ucayali, which greatly complicates the exact calculations of its size.

For a long time, the longest river on the planet was the Nile. According to various estimates, it extends over a distance of 6670 to 6853 meters. Amazon was usually ranked second only to him. It was believed that it originates in the northern part of Peru, which means that its length does not exceed 6500 meters.

IN Lately new data and other studies have emerged, thanks to which the Amazon has become a world leader. The length of the river today is determined in the range of 6900-7000 meters, and its sources are sought closer to the center, or even to the south, of the state of Peru.

Character of the Great River

The Amazon begins its journey in the Andes Mountains at altitudes of several thousand meters. There, its tributaries flow through narrow deep valleys, which often turn into gorges with high sheer walls. Here they are gaining quite great speed and in some places form waterfalls.

At the exit from the mountains, the area where the Amazon River flows becomes flat and slightly dissected. Such it is to the very shores of the Atlantic, forming the largest plain in the world - the Amazonian lowland.

For hundreds of kilometers through the territory of Peru, the river flows in the form of numerous tributaries. It becomes the Amazon directly at the confluence of Marañon and Ucayali, not far from the border with Brazil, in the area of ​​the Pacaya-Samiria park.

It is a muddy stream, which meanders strongly and forms many branches and oxbows. Due to its characteristic color upstream It was named Solimões, which translates as "yellow river". Near the city of Manaus, the Amazon merges with major tributary Rio Negro, which is known for its very dark hue and is nicknamed the "black river". Their waters have different densities and do not merge immediately. For about six kilometers, they form two parallel streams of different colors.

Mode

Where the Amazon River is in the lowlands, its channel is wide, and the speed of the flow is about 5 meters per second. On the plain, its slope is minimal, and the banks are very low and descend to the riverbed in stepped terraces. The lower levels of the floodplain (igapo) are heavily flooded during floods, turning the area around the river into impenetrable swamps for several months. Above are the varzea terraces, which are not flooded every year, and even higher are the areas to which the water does not reach at all.

In normal times, the width of the Amazon reaches from 5 to 20 kilometers. During the rainy season, it spills over 50 kilometers or more, increasing its area by almost three times.

Amazon leaks in the heat climate zone where there is never snow and frosty winter. Therefore, it is not covered with ice, and it is fed mainly due to precipitation, which is very abundant here.

It passes very close to the equator, and has tributaries in both the northern and southern hemispheres. Thanks to this, the river constantly remains full-flowing, and floods occur on it all year round, only in different places. The seasons of the hemispheres seem to balance each other: to the north of the equator, it rains from March to September, and to the south of the equator - from October to April. This allows you to keep the level in the river approximately the same, without significant fluctuations.

tributaries

Over the long journey, more than 500 tributaries join the Amazon River, many of which are important in their own right. waterways. Flowing into the main channel, most of them form deltas with shoals and alluvial islands. Some of them connect with main river Lots of side sleeves.

An interesting feature of the Amazon tributaries is their color. There is not a single place in the world where rivers would have so many different shades. In addition to the blue-black Rio Negro, there is a greenish Tapajos or milky-white Purus and Madeira, as well as various streams with gray, yellow and brown water.

Due to the humid climate with an abundance of rainfall, most of the region's rivers are very full-flowing and stretch for many kilometers. Approximately 20 tributaries of the Amazon in length reach from 1500 to 3300 kilometers. The most significant of them are: Zhurua (3280 km), Madeira (3230 km), Purus (3200 km), Rio Negro (2300 km), Tapajos (2200 km), Xingu (1980 km), Japura (1900 km).

Amazon Delta

The waters of the river are heavily clouded with silt and soft rocks that break off the banks and rush along the stream. Between 600 million and 1.2 billion tons of particulate matter are released into the ocean each year. Where the mouth of the Amazon River is located, sediments form a huge delta. It is a silty lowland, indented by many branches and channels.

The river delta is located on the territory of two Brazilian states and covers an area from 100 to 300 thousand km 2. Within its boundaries there are a large number of islands, overgrown with palm trees and other evergreen vegetation. At the entrance to the ocean, small streams of the Amazon merge, forming several wide mouths. The southernmost of them are washed on both sides by one of the largest islands in Brazil - Marajo, whose area (40.1 km 2) is slightly smaller than Switzerland or the Netherlands.

The slope of the river in the Amazonian lowlands is small, so it experiences the action of ocean tides. Entering through the mouth of the river, they form waves up to five meters high, which roll with a roar along the banks of the Amazon and destroy everything in their path. These tidal waves are called "pororok", which translates as "thundering water".

Navigability

At its source, the Amazon flows through difficult mountainous areas, where only extreme people can cope with it. But at the foot of the ridges, it enters the flat terrain and becomes accessible to water transport. Before the city of Manaus, its depth is from 3 to 20 meters, then it increases, and in the delta it is about 100-200 meters.

The main channel of the Amazon is accessible by boats, small boats, ferries and river taxis for a stretch of 4,300 kilometers. From the place where the Rio Negro joins it, to the very mouth, it is accessible to ocean-going ships and liners.

With all its tributaries, the Amazon forms an extensive transport network, the length of which is 25,000 kilometers. Its largest ports are: Belém, Obidos, Santarém, Manaus, Iquitos.

Underground source

Relatively recently, in the territory where the Amazon is located, a significant underground source of Hamza was discovered. It is located at a depth of 4 thousand meters, and flows almost parallel to the "Great River". Moreover, its length is about 6 thousand kilometers, which makes it one of the world's largest water arteries.

The discovery took place in 2011, when scientists suggested that the underground source is the twin river of the Amazon. Later it turned out that the water in it is salty, and its flow is almost imperceptible and amounts to almost a centimeter per year. Because of this, Hamza cannot be called a "river", but this does not detract from the uniqueness of the discovery.

Vegetable world

The Amazon Basin, which stretches for hundreds of thousands of kilometers, is traditionally called the "Amazon". All of it is covered with evergreen rainforests, which represent one of the most diverse and important ecosystems on the planet. There are more than a thousand plants per ten square kilometers.

In the forests of the Amazon grow hundreds of species of palms and orchids, all kinds of vines and shrubs. In the channels formed by the mighty river, you can find the world's largest water lily, Victoria regia, whose leaves reach 1-2 meters in diameter.

There are many valuable species in the river basin. Rubber plants grow here, the juice of which is used to produce elastic materials; chocolate tree, from which cocoa is made; as well as balsa - the source of the lightest wood.

Inhabitants of the Amazon

The fauna of the lowlands, where the Amazon River is located, is no less diverse. wild impenetrable jungle full of amazing, strange and often dangerous inhabitants. The world's largest rodent, the capybara, is found in the river valley. In length, it reaches 1-14 meters, and can weigh up to 65 kilograms.

In the waters of the Amazon, there is an electric eel that can shock the enemy with a discharge of 1300 volts, as well as toothy piranha fish, a flock of which can deal with a person or a large ungulate animal in a matter of minutes.

The pride and horror of the Amazon is largest snake on the planet - anaconda. This is a huge boa constrictor that reaches a length of 4-5 meters in length. The unique fauna of the river basin is also represented by wild cats ocelots, caimans, poison frogs poison dart frogs, tiny hummingbirds, sloths, monkeys, tapirs, jaguars and colorful toucans.