The Amazon Basin

According to popular South American legend, the Amazon River Basin was named by the Spanish Explorer Francisco de Orellana in the year 1541. This brave explorer traversed many dangerous and often life threatening areas of the Rainforest and Amazonian Regions of South America. During his travels, he encountered what he called “brave female warriors” and so named the regions after them. The Amazon River Basin is over 4,000 miles long and covers over 2 million square miles; making the Amazon River Basin the largest in the world. The area is called a “Basin” because its rivers and tributaries are contained by the two large, stable masses of Pre-Cambrian rock which are the Highlands of the North and the Plateaus’ of the South. The Andes Mountain Regions are to the West, and the river drains to the Atlantic Ocean in the East. The Amazon Rainforest is estimated to be over 100 million years old; thought to be the oldest in the world. The Amazon Rainforest can be found along the Earth's Equatorial zone, between the tropics of Capricorn and Cancer, where rainfall is abundant year-round. The biodiversity, the Earth's abundance of life forms, whether plants, animals or micro-organisms of tropical rain forests is greater than that of any other type of ecosystem. The Amazon Rainforest remains one of the last and least known earthly secrets.

To put the sheer size of the Amazon in its proper perspective, it is worth noting that within the area occupied by the Amazon, you could put Portugal, Spain, France, Italy --- including Sardinia and Corsica --- Germany, Holland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, as well as the United Kingdom and Southern Ireland, and still have room to spare!