Due to the tremendous amount of rainfall they receive, tropical rainforests have some of the largest rivers in the world, like the Amazon, Mekong, Orinoco, and Congo. These mega-rivers are fed by countless smaller tributaries, streams, and creeks. For example, the Amazon alone has some 1,100 tributaries, 17 of which are over 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) long!
The Amazon, which drains about 40 percent of the South American continent, is the world's largest river. It carries more than five times the water as the world's second largest river, the Congo, and twelve times that of the Mississippi. During the high water season, the Amazon river's mouth may be 300 miles wide and every day up to 7.2 million Olympic swimming pools' worth of water is discharged into the Atlantic Ocean.
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Review questions
- What is the world's largest river?
- Where is the world's biggest river located? On what continent?
- Rainforest waters From our main rainforests web site
- The Amazon Rainforest From our main rainforests web site
- Photos of rivers From our photo web site
- May I use graphics from mongabay.com for my projects? Yes, you may provided that you don't remove the mongabay label from the images. You may use information from the site for class projects and can cite mongabay as the source.
- Where can I learn more about rainforests? Check the main rainforest site.
- Is this web site credible? Mongabay is the world's most popular source for information on tropical forests. The site is highly acclaimed by a number of the world's leading tropical scientists. See more answers at our frequently asked questions page.
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