Amazon Rainforest

The largest tropical rainforest on Earth, home to an unrivalled diversity of plants and animals.

It makes up over half of the world's remaining rainforest and is the largest and most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest on Earth, with an estimated 390 billion trees of about 16,000 species. More than 30 million people from 350 ethnic groups live in the Amazon, and about 60 groups remain largely isolated.

A forest shaped by people

Humans first settled the Amazon region at least 11,200 years ago, based on finds at the Caverna da Pedra Pintada. For a long time scientists thought poor soil could never feed many people, but new findings suggest the region was densely populated, perhaps 5 million people in AD 1500. Dark fertile soil called terra preta, now widely seen as made by indigenous soil management, and large geoglyphs, earthworks found since the 1970s, suggest that much of the forest was shaped by people over centuries. In 2003 researchers found roads, bridges and plazas in the Xingu region.

The name and the first explorers

Francisco de Orellana was the first European to travel the length of the Amazon River, in 1542. The name Amazon is said to come from a war he fought with the Tapuyas and other tribes, in which women fought alongside the men. He linked them to the Amazons of Greek mythology. The British explorer Percy Fawcett searched for a lost civilisation he called the City of Z and disappeared mysteriously on his last trip.

A forest under pressure

The Amazon formed likely during the Eocene era, between 56 and 33.9 million years ago. Large-scale deforestation is happening today and causes harmful effects. Economic losses from deforestation in Brazil could be about seven times higher than the value of the goods produced by it. In 2023 the World Bank proposed an economic programme for the region that does not rely on cutting down forest. Four nations use Amazonas as the name of a first-level region.

On the globe

The model shows dense green forest with a winding river. Look for the river curving through the trees.