Amazon Basin

The Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries.

The river basin

The Amazon River is the largest river in the world. With its more than 1,000 tributaries, the Amazon River network encompasses almost half of South America. The Amazon itself is 6,516 km (4,050 miles) long. Only the Nile River is longer. Its total drainage basin is nearly as large as the entire United States. The Amazon Basin has a very warm and humid climate. It rains almost 200 days of the year, and per year rainfall exceeds 2,000 mm (80 inches). The flow of the river into the sea is about 10 times the flow of the Mississippi and 56 times the flow of the Nile, about 1.8 million m³/s (28 billion US gallons per minute).

Related Topics:
Amazon River - South America - Nile River - United States - Mississippi

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Tides affect the Amazon River almost 1,000 km (600 miles) inland because of the shallow gradient. An interesting fact is that the river delta is so large that it splits into channels around numerous islands. One island, Marajo, is as big as New Hampshire and Vermont combined.

Related Topics:
Delta - Marajo - New Hampshire - Vermont

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