Amazonas (Brazilian state)
Amazonas is a state of Brazil, located in the North Region in the northwestern corner of the country. It is the largest Brazilian state by area and the 9th largest country subdivision in the world, is greater than the areas of Uruguay and Chile combined. Located in the Southern Hemisphere, it is the third largest country subdivision in the Southern Hemisphere after the Australian states of Western Australia and Queensland, it would be the sixteenth largest country in land area larger than Mongolia. It is larger than the whole of the Northeast Region of Brazil with its nine states. Amazonas is 90% the size of the U. S. is equivalent to 2.25 times the area of Texas. Neighbouring states are Roraima, Pará, Mato Grosso, Rondônia, Acre, it borders the nations of Peru and Venezuela. This includes the Departments of Amazonas, Vaupés and Guainía in Colombia, as well as the Amazonas state in Venezuela, the Loreto Region in Peru. Amazonas is named after the Amazon River, was part of the Spanish Empire's Viceroyalty of Peru, a region called Spanish Guyana.
It was settled by the Portuguese moving northwest from Brazil in the early 18th century and incorporated into the Portuguese empire after the Treaty of Madrid in 1750. It became a state under the First Brazilian Republic in 1889. Most of the state is tropical jungle; the capital and largest city is Manaus, a modern city of 2.1 million inhabitants in the middle of the jungle on the Amazon River 1,500 km upstream from the Atlantic Ocean. Nearly half the state's population lives in the city; the name was given to the Amazon River that runs through the state by the Spaniard Francisco de Orellana in 1541. Claiming to have come across a warlike tribe of Indians, with whom he fought, he likened them to the Amazons of Greek mythology, giving them the same name of Río de las Amazonas. See also: Timeline of Amazon history and History of Amazonas See Also History of South America#Amazon and Amazon Rainforest#HistoryAt one time the Amazon River flowed westward as part of a proto-Congo river system from the interior of present-day Africa when the continents were joined as part of western Gondwana.
Fifteen million years ago, the Andes were formed by the collision of the South American Plate with the Nazca Plate plate. The rise of the Andes and the linkage of the Brazilian and Guyana bedrock shields, blocked the river and caused the Amazon to become a vast inland sea; this inland sea became a massive swampy, freshwater lake and the marine inhabitants adapted to life in freshwater. For example, over 20 species of stingray, most related to those found in the Pacific Ocean, can be found today in the fresh waters of the Amazon. About ten million years ago, waters worked through the sandstone to the west and the Amazon began to flow eastward. At this time the Amazon rainforest was born. During the Ice Age, sea levels dropped and the great Amazon lake drained and became a river. Three million years the ocean level receded enough to expose the Central American isthmus and allow mass migration of mammal species between the Americas; the Ice Ages caused tropical rainforest around the world to retreat.
Although debated, it is believed that much of the Amazon reverted to montane forest. Savanna divided patches of rainforest into "islands" and separated existing species for periods long enough to allow genetic differentiation; when the ice ages ended, the forest was again joined, the species that were once one, had diverged enough to be designated as separate species, adding to the tremendous diversity of the region. About 6,000 years ago, sea levels rose about 130 meters, once again causing the river to be inundated like a long, giant freshwater lake; the pre-Columbian Amazonas was inhabited by seminomadic peoples whose livelihood mixed occasional agriculture with a fishing and hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Because of Christopher Columbus' misunderstanding of the continent at which he had arrived, the native population were and are denominated "índios" by the Portuguese. Two thousand Indian tribes lived in the region in the sixteenth century amounting to some millions of people, but phenomena such as disease and assimilation to Brazilian culture caused their numbers to fall to three hundred thousand, two hundred tribes, by the end of the twentieth century.
Certain uncontacted tribes still exist in the region. In the colonial time, the territory which today belongs to the State of Amazonas, was a combination of treaties, expeditions and military occupations. Scarce but recorded claims and indigenous uprisings in the region, were made by the Spanish Empire through the Treaty of Tordesillas and after the Portuguese Empire by the First Treaty of San Ildefonso; the State includes territory from failed attempts at colonization by the European powers, such as England and the Dutch empire. The first Spanish expedition was by Francisco de Orellana in conjunction with Catholic priest Gaspar de Carvajal, who documented the expedition, he reported a conflict against indigenous women which led to the current name of the river, to the current name of the region and the state. The second Spanish expedition was by
Juruá, Amazonas
Juruá is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. Its population was 7,516 and its area is 19,400 km²; the municipality contains 62% of the 187,982 hectares Baixo Juruá Extractive Reserve, created in 2001. The municipality contains about 12% of the Tefé National Forest, created in 1989
Purus várzea
The Purus várzea is an ecoregion of seasonally flooded várzea forest in the central Amazon basin. It is part of the Amazon biome; the ecoregion is home to a vegetation adapted to floods of up to 12 metres that may last for eight months. There is a great variety of fish and birds, but fewer mammals. Ground-dwelling mammals must migrate to higher ground during the flood season. Threats include logging, cattle over-fishing and mercury pollution from gold mining; the Purus várzea is a low-lying region of the central Amazon basin, seasonally flooded. It covers 17,741,418 hectares of eastern western Brazil, it extends along most of the Juruá, central Purus, Caquetá rivers and their tributaries. In the east it reaches the confluence of the Japurá and Solimões Rivers. Urban centers in or around the region are Tefé, Tabatinga and Carauarí. To the southeast the varzea adjoins the Purus-Madeira moist forests, to the northeast it adjoins the Japurá-Solimões-Negro moist forests. Streams that flow through the Southwest Amazon moist forests, Solimões-Japurá moist forests and Caqueta moist forests to the west, the Juruá-Purus moist forests in the central region all contain stretches of the varzea.
The Monte Alegre várzea is downstream along the Solimões. Altitudes range from 80 to 120 metres; the forests are seasonally flooded by whitewater rivers, which carry suspended sediment washed from the eastern slopes of the Andes and organic material. Water levels rise by up to 12 metres in the flood period, which may last for eight months of the year; the soil is fertile, composed of sediments that have accumulated in the present Holocene epoch and that are renewed by the annual floods. The river course through the floodplain shifts over time, creating oxbow lakes, meander swales and bars; these landscape elements support diverse vegetation adapted to flooding, which merges into the surrounding terra firme forest. The ecoregion is in the neotropic ecozone and the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome; the Köppen climate classification is "Af": equatorial humid. Average temperatures range from 21 to 32 °C, with a mean temperature of 26.5 °C. Average annual precipitation is about 2,550 millimetres.
Rain is heaviest in January-March and lightest in July-August. The floodplain holds aquatic vegetation where drainage is poor, successional vegetation, forest mosaics and permanent swamp vegetation; the várzea forests holds more species than várzea on the lower Amazon, but fewer species than in the surrounding terra firme forests. The forest is continuous; the rich understory includes plants of the Zingiberaceae and Heliconiaceae families. Economically valuable timber trees include Carapa guianensis, Iryanthera surinamensis, Ceiba pentandra and Calycophyllum spruceanum. On the upper levees the most common trees are Hura crepitans and Parinari excelsa. On the lower levees common trees include Pterocarpus santalinoides, Eschweilera albiflora, Piranhea trifoliata and Neoxythece elegans; the lowest areas contain abundant bamboo, pioneer trees that include Cecropia species, Pseudobombax munguba, many Ficus species and the Astrocaryum jauari palm. There are few palms compared to the terra firme forests.
Other palm species include Astrocaryum murumuru, Mauritia flexuosa and Bactris species including the endemic Bactris tefensis. Trees that support fruit-eating fish that enter the forest in the flood period include yellow mombim, jauari palm, biribá, tarumã, apui; the largest tree in the várzea is Ceiba pentandra. Other typical várzea trees are Parkia inundabilis, Septotheca tessmannii, Coumarouna micrantha, Ceiba burchellii, Ochroma lagopus and Manilkara inundata. Flooded forests hold Euterpe oleracea. 199 species of mammals are found in fewer than in the surrounding terra firme forests. There are no ground-dwelling species in flooded várzea forests isolated from the mainland, but areas of várzea in contact with terra firme forests house ground-dwelling mammals that migrate to higher ground in the flood periods. There are two endemic primates in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve, the bald uakari and black squirrel monkey; the reserve is home to white-footed saki, emperor tamarin, moustached tamarin, Nancy Ma's night monkey and Hershkovitz's titi.
Other mammals include white-lipped peccary, common agouti, lowland paca, capybara, spiny tree-rat and Ega long-tongued bat. Aquatic mammals include Amazon river dolphin and Amazonian manatee'. Endangered mammals include white-bellied spider monkey, Peruvian spider monkey, white-cheeked spider monkey, Marinkelle's sword-nosed bat and giant otter.633 bird species have been reported. These include many aquatic species such as heron and egret, whistling duck and roseate spoonbills. Endangered birds include green-thighed parrot; the large green anaconda is found in the várzea. Other reptiles include black caiman (
Brazil
Brazil the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At 8.5 million square kilometers and with over 208 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the fifth most populous. Its capital is Brasília, its most populated city is São Paulo; the federation is composed of the union of the 26 states, the Federal District, the 5,570 municipalities. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 kilometers, it borders all other South American countries except Ecuador and Chile and covers 47.3% of the continent's land area. Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats; this unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, is the subject of significant global interest and debate regarding deforestation and environmental protection.
Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808, when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. In 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system; the ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, now called the National Congress. The country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup d'état. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, after which civilian governance resumed. Brazil's current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic. Due to its rich culture and history, the country ranks thirteenth in the world by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Brazil is considered an advanced emerging economy. It has the ninth largest GDP in the world by nominal, eight and PPP measures, it is one of the world's major breadbaskets, being the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years. It is classified as an upper-middle income economy by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country, with the largest share of global wealth in Latin America. Brazil is a regional power and sometimes considered a great or a middle power in international affairs. On account of its international recognition and influence, the country is subsequently classified as an emerging power and a potential superpower by several analysts. Brazil is a founding member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Union of South American Nations, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, it is that the word "Brazil" comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast.
In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil given the etymology "red like an ember", formed from brasa and the suffix -il. As brazilwood produces a deep red dye, it was valued by the European textile industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. Throughout the 16th century, massive amounts of brazilwood were harvested by indigenous peoples along the Brazilian coast, who sold the timber to European traders in return for assorted European consumer goods; the official Portuguese name of the land, in original Portuguese records, was the "Land of the Holy Cross", but European sailors and merchants called it the "Land of Brazil" because of the brazilwood trade. The popular appellation eclipsed and supplanted the official Portuguese name; some early sailors called it the "Land of Parrots". In the Guarani language, an official language of Paraguay, Brazil is called "Pindorama"; this was the name the indigenous population gave to the region, meaning "land of the palm trees".
Some of the earliest human remains found in the Americas, Luzia Woman, were found in the area of Pedro Leopoldo, Minas Gerais and provide evidence of human habitation going back at least 11,000 years. The earliest pottery found in the Western Hemisphere was excavated in the Amazon basin of Brazil and radiocarbon dated to 8,000 years ago; the pottery was found near Santarém and provides evidence that the tropical forest region supported a complex prehistoric culture. The Marajoara culture flourished on Marajó in the Amazon delta from 800 CE to 1400 CE, developing sophisticated pottery, social stratification, large populations, mound building, complex social formations such as chiefdoms. Around the time of the Portuguese arrival, the territory of current day Brazil had an estimated indigenous population of 7 million people semi-nomadic who subsisted on hunting, fishing and migrant agriculture; the indigenous population of Brazil comprised several large indigenous ethnic groups. The Tupí people were subdivided into the Tupiniquins and Tupinambás, there were many subdivisions of the other gro
River mouth
A river mouth is the part of a river where the river debouches into another river, a lake, a reservoir, a sea, or an ocean. The water from a river can enter the receiving body in a variety of different ways; the motion of a river is influenced by the relative density of the river compared to the receiving water, the rotation of the earth, any ambient motion in the receiving water, such as tides or seiches. If the river water has a higher density than the surface of the receiving water, the river water will plunge below the surface; the river water will either form an underflow or an interflow within the lake. However, if the river water is lighter than the receiving water, as is the case when fresh river water flows into the sea, the river water will float along the surface of the receiving water as an overflow. Alongside these advective transports, inflowing water will diffuse. At the mouth of a river, the change in flow condition can cause the river to drop any sediment it is carrying; this sediment deposition can generate a variety of landforms, such as deltas, sand bars and tie channels.
Many places in the United Kingdom take their names from their positions at the mouths of rivers, such as Plymouth and Great Yarmouth. Confluence River delta Estuary Liman
Geography
Geography is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features and phenomena of the Earth and planets. The first person to use the word γεωγραφία was Eratosthenes. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of Earth and its human and natural complexities—not where objects are, but how they have changed and come to be. Geography is defined in terms of two branches: human geography and physical geography. Human geography deals with the study of people and their communities, cultures and interactions with the environment by studying their relations with and across space and place. Physical geography deals with the study of processes and patterns in the natural environment like the atmosphere, hydrosphere and geosphere; the four historical traditions in geographical research are: spatial analyses of natural and the human phenomena, area studies of places and regions, studies of human-land relationships, the Earth sciences. Geography has been called "the world discipline" and "the bridge between the human and the physical sciences".
Geography is a systematic study of its features. Traditionally, geography has been associated with place names. Although many geographers are trained in toponymy and cartology, this is not their main preoccupation. Geographers study the space and the temporal database distribution of phenomena and features as well as the interaction of humans and their environment; because space and place affect a variety of topics, such as economics, climate and animals, geography is interdisciplinary. The interdisciplinary nature of the geographical approach depends on an attentiveness to the relationship between physical and human phenomena and its spatial patterns. Names of places...are not geography...know by heart a whole gazetteer full of them would not, in itself, constitute anyone a geographer. Geography has higher aims than this: it seeks to classify phenomena, to compare, to generalize, to ascend from effects to causes, and, in doing so, to trace out the laws of nature and to mark their influences upon man.
This is ` a description of the world' --. In a word Geography is a Science—a thing not of mere names but of argument and reason, of cause and effect. Just as all phenomena exist in time and thus have a history, they exist in space and have a geography. Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main subsidiary fields: human geography and physical geography; the former focuses on the built environment and how humans create, view and influence space. The latter examines the natural environment, how organisms, soil and landforms produce and interact; the difference between these approaches led to a third field, environmental geography, which combines physical and human geography and concerns the interactions between the environment and humans. Physical geography focuses on geography as an Earth science, it aims to understand the physical problems and the issues of lithosphere, atmosphere and global flora and fauna patterns. Physical geography can be divided into many broad categories, including: Human geography is a branch of geography that focuses on the study of patterns and processes that shape the human society.
It encompasses the human, cultural and economic aspects. Human geography can be divided into many broad categories, such as: Various approaches to the study of human geography have arisen through time and include: Behavioral geography Feminist geography Culture theory Geosophy Environmental geography is concerned with the description of the spatial interactions between humans and the natural world, it requires an understanding of the traditional aspects of physical and human geography, as well as the ways that human societies conceptualize the environment. Environmental geography has emerged as a bridge between the human and the physical geography, as a result of the increasing specialisation of the two sub-fields. Furthermore, as human relationship with the environment has changed as a result of globalization and technological change, a new approach was needed to understand the changing and dynamic relationship. Examples of areas of research in the environmental geography include: emergency management, environmental management and political ecology.
Geomatics is concerned with the application of computers to the traditional spatial techniques used in cartography and topography. Geomatics emerged from the quantitative revolution in geography in the mid-1950s. Today, geomatics methods include spatial analysis, geographic information systems, remote sensing, global positioning systems. Geomatics has led to a revitalization of some geography departments in Northern America where the subject had a declining status during the 1950s. Regional geography is concerned with the description of the unique characteristics of a particular region such as its natural or human elements; the main aim is to understand, or define the uniqueness, or character of a particular region that consists of natural as well as human elements. Attention is paid to regionalization, which covers the proper techniques of space delimitation into regions. Urban planning, regional planning, spatial planning: Use the science of geography to assist in determining how to develop the land to meet particular criteria, such as safety, economic opportunities, the preservation of the built or natural heritage, so on.
The planning of towns, c
Department of Ucayali
Ucayali is an inland region in Peru. Located in the Amazon rainforest, its name is derived from the Ucayali River; the regional capital is the city of Pucallpa. The Ucayali Region is bordered by the Brazilian state of Acre on the east. According to the 2007 Census, the Ucayali Region has a population of 432,159 inhabitants, 51.4% of which are male and 48.6% are female. 75.3 % of the population live in urban areas. As of 2002, the Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática estimated the region's population to be 468,922. Spanish is spoken as a first language by 87.6% of the population, while 4.1% speak Asháninka, 1.5% speak Quechua and 0.1% speak Aymara. Other indigenous languages, including Shipibo, are spoken by 6.6% of the population and 0.0% speak foreign languages. Persons originating from other regions of the country make up 34.7% of the population and 0.2% of residents were born abroad. The largest immigrant groups come from the Loreto Region; the population is spread out with 53.9% under the age of 20, 9.3% from 20 to 24, 25.4% from 25 to 44, 8.8% from 45 to 64, 2.5% who are 65 years of age or older.
Secondary education has been attended by 29% of the population and 2.3% have graduated from non-university higher education, while 1.7% have complete university studies. 49.3 % only have attended 9.1 % have not had any education. The illiteracy rate in the region is 14.2% The region is divided into 4 provinces, which are composed of 14 districts. The provinces, with their capitals in parentheses, are: Atalaya Coronel Portillo Padre Abad Purús El Sira Communal Reserve Purús Communal Reserve Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Pucallpa Gobierno Regional de Ucayali – Ucayali Regional Government website
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