The Amazon River is the longest river in South America and flows through the Amazon rainforest.
The river rises through a network of headwaters in the Andes of Peru and travels generally eastward across Peru, Colombia, and Brazil before reaching the Atlantic Ocean. Its immense drainage basin covers parts of several South American countries and contains more water than any other river system.
The Amazon is often compared with the Nile because measurements of river length depend on which distant headwater is treated as the source. Even so, the Amazon is unquestionably the world’s largest river by discharge and drainage-basin area. Its main channel is also among the broadest on Earth, becoming especially wide near its mouth.
The river has supported Indigenous societies for thousands of years and remains important for transport, fisheries, ecosystems, and climate research. The nearby rainforest is not a single protected site but a vast region crossed by many tributaries, including the Madeira, Negro, and Tapajós.