5 curiosities of the Amazonia that you might not know

Do you know exactly what we refer to when we mention Amazonia? Have you ever wondered what this wonderful region in South America has to offer? In this article we will tell you a few oddities about the Amazonia that you might have not heard about ever before.

The Amazonia in an ecological region which is famous for its tropical, dense and humid jungle, and also for its intricate water system that has the Amazon river as its main axis: the longest and mightiest river in the world.

5 anecdotes of the Amazonia, the green giant of America

1. The first known European person to ever reach the mouth of the Amazon river was Vicente Yáñez Pinzón in the year 1500. Misled by its extent, he thought it was a sea and named it “the sweet sea”.
2. The Amazon has been traditionally assigned the second position in total length, behind the Nile, although there has never been a general consensus on what are the acceptable measurement points.
3. The Amazon transports more water than the Mississipi river, the Nile, and the Yangtze combined. Its drainage area or basin is also the largest in the world. The Amazon river is responsible for a fifth part of the World’s total fresh water reaching the ocean. The force with which the river pours its waters into the Atlantic Ocean is so strong that fresh water can be drunk even where the coast is no longer visible.
4. In most of the lowlands of the Amazon basin, the forests remain flooded for half the year. These floods are actually crucial to the Amazonian ecosystem because they increase the amount of habitat available for numerous species of plants and aquatic animals of the low plains.
5. The effect of the Atlantic tides at the mouth of the Amazon reaches its highest level with the phenomenon called Pororoca, which means “great noise”. This expression is used to refer to the penetration of the waters of the Atlantic in the course of the Amazon River during the high tide season. The fresh water of the Amazon River causes the sea water to break forming waves. This then translates into a strong opposition between the two, an opposition that is the cause of the noise and gives name to the phenomenon.

This information is compiled from the wonderful book “Amazonia”, from the Hispano-Peruvian Cooperation Program of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation.