Abstract
The Amazon Basin is by far the greatest river basin in the world. It drains an area of about 7 million square kilometers (2.73 million square miles), twice the area of the world’s second largest basin, that of the river Zaïre (Congo) in Africa. Sloping down eastward from the foot of the Andes in the west, the enormous plains that make up most of the basin area border the Guiana Highlands in the north and the Brazilian Highlands in the south. The basin’s lowlands are widest (about 1,400 kilometers [880 miles]) west of the confluence of the Amazon with the Rio Negro and narrowest 40°N (about 65 kilometers [40 miles]) near Santarém, where the Guiana and Brazilian highlands come closest. Most of the surface of the Amazon lowlands is an undulating plain, well above the floodplains of the rivers, whose main surface features are river terraces and bluffs which often stand 50 to 60 meters (160 to 200 feet) above the river. This is also by far the richest basin in water resources.
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© 1991 Carta, The Israel Map and Publishing Company, Ltd.
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Brawer, M. (1991). The Amazon Basin. In: Atlas of South America. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12579-1_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12579-1_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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Online ISBN: 978-1-349-12579-1
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