The Amazon rainforest is located in northern South America, in the country of Brazil. It covers 2,300,000 square miles and makes up about 40 percent of the geographic area of Brazil.
The Amazon rainforest is located in the largest river basin in the world, and stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to its western border at the Andes mountain ranges. Its northern border is the Guiana Highlands, with a southern boundary at the Brazilian central plateau. Major areas of the Amazon rainforest were settled in the 20th century, and the size of the rainforest shrank as settlers cleared the land.
