Amazon River Facts

When you know some Amazon River facts, you can't help but be amazed.  Maybe this list of Amazon River facts will inspire you to go explore the Amazon River yourself.

1. Long and Big. The Amazon River is approximately 4,000 miles long! The Nile and the Amazon keep getting re- measured by arguing geographers to determine which is actually the longest in the world. The Nile is most often described as the longest, with the Amazon River as a very close second. The countries it runs through include Guyana, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. The width of the Amazon River is anywhere from a mile wide during the dryer season, to 25 or 30 miles wide during the wet season.
2. No bridges. No bridges span the Amazon. This is because it runs through thick, lush rainforest. There are no main thoroughfares running between towns and cities, so no bridges are necessary.
3. Cool critters. Cruise down the Amazon River. Look closely and listen carefully. You may see a velvety jaguar, a toucan in the rainforest trees, a humongous anaconda snake, or a brilliant poison dart frog. You may hear the screaming of a howler monkey, or the raucous calls of a scarlet macaw bird. In the water around your craft, look for pink river dolphins, packs of piranhas, and over three thousand different species of fish. Between 1999 and 2009, an average of three new species per day were identified in the Amazon River basin. Wow!
4. Conservation. The rainforest is chopped down at an incredible rate. If it continues to disappear at the current rate, about 55% of the Amazon rainforest may be gone by 2030. Earth's weather stabilization relies partly on the rainforest. Currently, developers and conservationists wage a battle over the fate of the Amazon River basin. A collection of Amazon River facts is incomplete without acknowledging that its ecosystem is endangered.