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Amazon
rainforest, near Manaus,
Brazil.
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Map of the Amazon rainforest ecoregions
as
delineated by the WWF. Yellow line approximately encloses the Amazon
rainforest
Amazon Rainforest-a natural beauty
The Amazon rainforest, also known as Amazonia,
or the Amazon jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin
of South America. This basin encompasses
seven million square kilometers (1.7 billion acres), of which five and a half
million square kilometers (1.4 billion acres) are covered by the rainforest.
This region includes territory belonging to nine nations. The majority of the
forest is contained within Brazil,
with 60% of the rainforest, followed by Peru
with 13%, and with minor amounts in Colombia,
Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia,
Guyana, Suriname, and French
Guiana. States or departments in four nations bear the name Amazonas after it. The Amazon represents over half of the
planet's remaining rainforests, and it comprises the largest and most
species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world.
Wet tropical forests are the most species-rich biome, and tropical forests in
the Americas are
consistently more species rich than the wet forests in Africa and Asia. As the largest tract of tropical rainforest in
the Americas,
the Amazonian rainforests have unparalleled biodiversity. One in ten known
species in the world live in the Amazon Rainforest. This constitutes the
largest collection of living plants and animal species in the world.
This is not
the earth coughing it is us
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