Amazon rainforest Amazon rainforest The Amazon rainforest (Portuguese: ' or '; , ' or usually '; ; ), also known in English as Amazonia or the Amazon Jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses , of which are covered by the rainforest. This region includes territory belonging to nine nations. The majority of the forest is contained within Brazil, with 60% of the rainforest, followed by Peru with 13%, Colombia with 10%, and with minor amounts in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. States
Amazon rainforest mean that data sampling is biased away from the center of the Amazon basin, and both explanations are reasonably well supported by the available data. More than 56% of the dust fertilizing the Amazon rainforest comes from the Bodélé depression in Northern Chad in the Sahara desert. The dust contains phosphorus, important for plant growth. The yearly Sahara dust replaces the equivalent amount of phosphorus washed away yearly in Amazon soil from rains and floods. Up to 50 million tonnes of Sahara dust per year are blown across the Atlantic Ocean. NASA's CALIPSO satellite has measured the amount of dust