Purus River

The Rio Purus in Peru

Beach on the Rio Purus

Highlighted Map of the Amazon Basin, Rio Purus

The 3210 km long Rio Purus ( Portuguese spelling, in Spanish, Río Purus ) is a right tributary of the Amazon, the largest stream of South America.

River

The river originates in a central mountain region east of the Peruvian Andes from the confluence of the Río Curiuja and Río Cujar in the region of Montana. There, their sources are located in the Peruvian province of Ucayali, approximately 320 kilometers north of Cuzco. From there, the Purus flows in a northeasterly direction to Brazil, where he joined the great Amazon River flows in a highly meandering course of the river and with little slope. Its mouth is located about 150 km west of the city Manaus.

Orographic the Purus is the Madeira River (see map ) are very similar. It flows about 200 kilometers west largely parallel to it and has almost the same length. Its course follows approximately a straight line between the Amazon sources of the Ucayali and the center of the Amazon basin in Manaus. The straight line from its source to its mouth only measures 1,450 kilometers in inclusion of all meanders its length is estimated to be about 3200 km. The watershed has an area of ​​371 042 square kilometers. Its mouth is located in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. The Purus contributes with a water flow of 11,000 m³ / s over five percent to the water of the Amazon to its mouth at. Are located on the banks of the Purus about 40,000 km ² inundation areas ( várzea ); also formed from the old meanders a variety of lakes. These two factors mean that the Purus fish is an extremely economically productive flow and ensures the majority of the fish supply for the city Manaus.

The Purus is navigable over most of its length; over the Rio Acre, one of its tributaries, up to Bolivia.

History

Between 1861 and 1865 the English explorer William Chandless went first up to the headwaters of the Purus. 1871 was followed by an expedition from Pereira Labre, after the later the city was named Lábrea.

At the headwaters of the Rio Purus in 2008 were discovered with the help of satellite images geoglyphs a yet unknown pre-Columbian culture.

The largest inflows

One of the biggest inflows include ( downstream ):

• Río Chandless (right)
• Rio Laco (right)
• Rio Acre (right)
• Rio Inauini (left)
• Rio Pauini (left)
• Rio Sepatini (right)
• Rio Ituxi (right)
• Rio Mucuim (right)
• Rio Tapauá (left)
• Rio Itapapaná (right)
• Rio Ipixuna (right)