The Amazon region is known as the lungs of the world, supplying 10 per cent of the world's fresh water. It is a huge, natural resource and, of course, endangered by development. Maintaining the Amazon forest is critically important internationally as deforestation contributes to climate change.
It is the world's second longest river. Only the Nile, in Africa, is longer. If you measure a river by the volume of water that flows along it, the Amazon is the world leader.
About
20 per cent of all the water that the world's rivers pour into the oceans comes
from the Amazon. It collects water from about 40 per cent of South America's
land area along over 1000 tributaries, 17 of which are over 1600 kilometers long. From Iquitos in Peru all the way across Brazil to the Atlantic, the
Amazon is between six and ten kilometers wide.
It is even wider when it is flooded.
The first European found the Amazon because he was 200 miles out to sea and
noticed that he was sailing in fresh water. He turned toward shore and found the
Amazon river. Later ships would anchor in the outflow of the Amazon to kill all
the marine life attached to their hulls before hauling the ships out to clean
them.
The Amazon River is 6280km long, with its source in Calillona, Peru. The mouth
is in North Eastern Brazil.