Rain Forests of South America

Half of all the world's rain forest is located in South and Central America. The South American region contains all three types—lowland, montane, and cloud forest—and is dominated by the great Amazon River and its tributaries. The forest of the Amazon basin covers an area about 1,150,000 square miles (2,990,000 square kilometers). The region on the northwest coast of Colombia is not well explored, in contrast to the much-explored forests of northern Brazil. In southern Brazil bordering Paraguay is the Mato Grosso forest. Cloud forests occur in the mountains of Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, and Guyana.

Annual rainfall is more than 236 inches (600 centimeters), which makes this one of the wettest places in the world.

An estimated 1,000,000 species of plants can be found in South American rain forests, which includes about one-third of all flowering plants in...