AMAZON RAINFOREST

The Amazon rain-forest also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America. This basin encompasses 2,700,000 sq mi (7,000,000 square kilometres), of which 2,100,000 sq mi (5,500,000 square kilometres) are covered by the rain-forest.

This region includes territory belonging to 9 nations. The majority of the forest is contained within Brazil, with sixty percent of the rain-forest, followed by Peru with thirteen percent, Colombia with ten percent, and with minor amounts in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. States or departments in four nations contain "Amazonas" in their names.

The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rain-forests, and comprises the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rain-forest in the world, with an estimated three hundred and ninety billion individual trees divided into sixteen thousands species.