"The largest of the world's rivers in terms of volume of water discharged into the sea is the Amazon. This mightiest of rivers forms a network of water channels that permeates nearly half the continent of South America. The main river is some 4,080 miles long, second only to the Nile in length. It is fed by more than 1,000 tributaries, including seven that are more than 1,000 miles long, and it drains more than half of Brazil, as well as parts of Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela. Its total drainage basin of some 2,722,000 square miles and encompasses about one-0third of South America,an area more than 10 times the size of Texas and nearly as large as the entire contiguous United States.
Over most of this vast region the climate is very warm and humid. Rain falls about 200 days each year, and total rainfall exceeds 80 inches per year. One result of so much rain is that Amazonia is covered by the largest tropical rain forest in the world. Another result is that the river carries by far the largest volume of water of any river in the world. On the average, some 28 billion gallons per minute flow into the sea, about 10 times the flow of the Mississippi. The discharge is so great that it noticeably dilutes the salinity of the Atlantic's waters for more than 100 miles offshore."
Amazon Basin
