The Amazon carries more water than any other river on Earth, discharging about one fifth of all the fresh water that flows into the world's oceans. It rises in the Andes of Peru and travels roughly six and a half thousand kilometers eastward across Brazil before emptying into the Atlantic through a mouth so wide that early sailors tasted fresh water far out at sea. More than a thousand tributaries feed it, and during the rainy season the river can rise by ten meters and spread many kilometers into the surrounding forest.
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