Amazon River Facts

The Amazon River is the largest river on Earth in terms of watershed area, number of tributaries and volume of water discharged. Its water volume accounts for approximately 1/5 of the World's total river flow; larger, indeed, than the combined flow of the next top ten largest rivers flowing into the ocean.

There is not complete agreement regarding the length of the Amazon river, as measurements vary according to methodology. Its length, though, lies anywhere between 6,259 km (3,889 miles) and 6,800 km (4,225 miles). It has over 1,000 tributaries, 8 of which are over 2,000 kilometres.

The source of the Amazon river, according to a National Geographic Society expedition, is to be found in a slope of Nevado Mismi --a 18,363-foot-high (5,597-meter) mountain in the southern Peruvian Andes. The river though is not formally known as Amazon until the confluence of two of its main tributaries, the Ucayali river and the Marañón river.

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