Manaus is the largest urban centre in the Amazon Rainforest.
The city is the capital of Brazil’s Amazonas state and lies near the confluence of the Negro and Solimões rivers. Those rivers form the Amazon River downstream, at the famous Meeting of Waters. Manaus is therefore a major gateway between the interior Amazon and Atlantic-linked transport routes.
Its population and infrastructure make it the principal metropolitan centre of the central Amazon. The city expanded rapidly during the late nineteenth-century rubber boom, when rubber exports created great wealth and funded landmarks such as Teatro Amazonas.
Manaus is not located at the mouth of the Amazon River; Belém occupies that broader eastern gateway role. Iquitos, Peru, is another important Amazonian city, but it is smaller and has no direct road connection to the Pacific or Atlantic coast.