In 1500 the Spanish navigator Vicente Pinzon discovered the huge mouth of the Amazon River and called that place Santa Maria del Mar Dulce.

Only later, in 1541, was the river named Amazon, when another Spanish navigator, Francisco Orellana (who joined Francisco Pizarro in the conquest of Peru in 1535), sailed along the entire river. Orellanna assured that he fought against the Indian female warriors (the Icamiabas) like the Greek legend of the warrior women, the so called "Amazons", what led him to choose the name Amazon for that big river.

The mouth of the Amazon River is located in the south of Peru (Peruvian Andes), 5,300 m high. The Amazon River flows approximately 7,000 km till it reaches the big delta of Amazon in the Atlantic Ocean, between the states of Amapa and Para, where we can find the biggest fluvial island of the world, the Marajo Island, with an area of 50,000 km2.

The Amazon is the biggest river in volume of water and in extension, being responsible for 1/5 of the fresh water that feeds all the oceans around the world. Along its course it is called, in Peru, Apurimac, Ucayali, Maranon and Amazonas. Reaching Brazil its name changes to Solimoes and when it meets the Rio Negro in Manaus (the meeting of the rivers “encontro das aguas”) it gets the name of Amazon.

The Amazon River Basin is 7 million km2 wide, involving eight South American countries (Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guiana and Suriname). 3,8 million km2 of its total area are located in Brazil, spread over 9 Brazilian States: Acre, Amazonas, Roraima, Rondonia, Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Amapa, Para and Maranhão. This region is called "Amazonia Legal" by the Brazilian government.