Amazon Rainforest and

River

Jenyzel Joy R. Descalzota

BSTM-III

Interesting Facts about Amazon

Rainforest

The Amazon is the world's biggest rainforest, larger than

the next two largest rainforests in the Congo Basin and
Indonesia combined.
At 6.9 million square kilometers (2.72 million square miles),
the Amazon Basin is roughly the size of the forty-eight
contiguous United States and covers some 40 percent of
the South American continent. The "Amazon rainforest"
which defined biogeographically includes the rainforest in
the Guianas, which technically are outside the Amazon
Basin covers 7.8-8.2 million sq km (3-3.2 million sq mi),
of which just over 80 percent is forested.
The Amazon River is by far the world's largest river by
volume. It has over 1,100 tributaries, 17 of which are longer
than 1000 miles.

 In 2007, a man named Martin Strel swam the entire length

of the Amazon river! To complete his splashing jungle

journey, Martin powered through the water for up to ten
hours a day for 66 days!
Around 400-500 indigenous Amerindian tribes call the
Amazon rainforest home. It's believed that about fifty of
these tribes have never had contact with the outside world!
The Amazon is found in South America, spanning across
Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana,
Suriname and French Guiana
The Amazon is the world's largest tropical rainforest.
Covering over 5.5 million square kilometres, it's so big that
the UK and Ireland would fit into it 17 times!