Tag: human environment interactions - the tropical and the subtropical region

Amazon is the largest river in the world,situated in south America. It covers an area of 7,500,000 square km and 40% of the south America continent. The most important tributary is the Maraming river, which is the second largest river in the world.  Major part of the basin is covered with amazon rain forest.

River Mississippi is the largest river of North American continent. It is fourth largest river of the world. This river originates from Itasca lake located in Minnesota city of USA. River Mississippi flows through 25 states of USA. It is longest river flowing in one country. It forms longest river system of the world. 

The Amazon River basin stretches from the Brazilian Highlands in the south to the Guiana Highlands in the north. Its area is around 2.7 million square miles, and it covers almost half of South America, including a total of eight countries: Colombia, Bolivia, Guiana, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Venezuela, and Suriname.

The Amazon Rainforest is an Equatorial rainforest and is located very close to the Equator. As a result of being an Equatorial rainforest, the Amazon basin's weather and climate are very hot, humid and damp.  There are no seasons like Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring, it is just one humid season with lots of rain.

The Amazon Basin stretches directly on the equator and is characterized by hot and wet climate throughout the year. Both day and nights are almost equally hot and humid. The skin feels sticky. It rains almost every day, that too without much warning. The day temperatures are high with very high humidity. At night the temperature goes down but the humidity remains high.

Convectional rainfall is common in the hot and wet tropical rain forests of central Africa, Amazon basin of South America and the islands of south-east Asia. In the late afternoon, the clouds burst into a heavy downpour, often accompanied by thunder and lighting. It usually occurs at about 4 pm, so convectional rain is called 'four o'clock rain' and occurs daily in the equatorial regions.

Amazon basin is located in the countries of Bolvia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Venezuela. Canadian Prairies is a region in western Canada which comprise the province of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

1. Nile River- 6693 km
2. Amazon River- 6436 km
3. Mississippi Missouri River - 5970 km
4. Congo river - 4700 km.

• Though some studies claim that the Amazon is the longest river but the generally accepted information is that the Nile is still considered to be the longest river till further confirmatory studies are done. So option A is correct.