Solimões River

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Main article: Amazon River
Solimões river at the confluence or the Meeting of Waters with Negro River, near Manaus, where the Amazon River officially begins.

Solimões (Portuguese pronunciation: [soliˈmõjs]) is the name often given to upper stretches of the Amazon River in Brazil from its confluence with the Rio Negro upstream to the border of Peru. The Solimões portion of the Amazon river lies entirely in the State of Amazonas, Brazil, and some portion of the state is often referred to as the "Solimões region". The ecoregion of the Solimões river drainage basin is entirely tropical rainforest.

The name Solimões is mostly confined to Brazilian Portuguese usage; the rest of the world simply refers to this portion of the river as the Amazon River.

A nation of aboriginies, called Soriman corrupted into Solimao and Soliemoens, imparts the name to this river and region.[Note 1]


  1. ^ The oft repeated claim that the name of the river is derived from a poison solimum used by the tribe "Yurimáguas"(Jurimaguas or Urimagues in Portuguese) living along the shore is probably a mis-transliteration of Solanum, ala Solanum nigrum, the Black Nightshade, a flowering plant which contains toxic alkaloids including the muscle relaxant curare. That this word could have been so transmogrified as to become Solimões seems unlikely.

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Coordinates: 04°38′09″S 70°15′57″W﻿ / ﻿4.63583°S 70.26583°W﻿ / -4.63583; -70.26583