Rio Negro (Amazon) in the context of "Amazon River"

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 flows for about 1,600 km (1,000 miles) through a floodplain about 80 km (50 miles) wide.

The Meeting of Waters (Portuguese: Encontro das Águas) is the confluence between the dark (blackwater) Rio Negro and the pale sandy-colored (whitewater) Amazon River, referred to as the Solimões River in Brazil upriver of this confluence. For 6 km (3.7 mi) the waters of the two rivers run side by side without mixing. This phenomenon is one of the main tourist attractions of Manaus. The river then flows another 60 km (37 mi) before mixing fully, but the phenomenon persists incompletely for another 30 km (19 mi).

This phenomenon is due to the vast differences in temperature, speed, and amount of dissolved sediments in the waters of the two rivers. The Rio Negro flows at near 2 km/h (1.2 mph) at a temperature of 28 °C (82 °F), while the Rio Solimões flows between 4 and 6 km/h (2.5–3.7 mph) at a temperature of 22 °C (72 °F). The light-colored water is rich with sediment from the Andes Mountains, whereas the black water, running from the Colombian hills and interior jungles, is nearly sediment-free and colored by decayed leaf and plant matter.

Manaus (Portuguese: [mɐˈnaws, ma-] ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Amazonas. It is the seventh-largest city in Brazil, with an estimated 2024 population of 2,279,686 distributed over a land area of about 11,401 km (4,402 sq mi). Located at the east centre of the state, the city is the centre of the Manaus metropolitan area and the largest metropolitan area in the North Region of Brazil by urban landmass. It is situated near the confluence of the Negro and Amazon rivers. It is one of the two cities in the Amazon rainforest with a population of over 1 million people, alongside Belém.

The city was founded in 1669 as the Fort of São José do Rio Negro. It was elevated to a town in 1832 with the name of "Manaus", an altered spelling of the indigenous Manaós peoples, and legally transformed into a city on October 24, 1848, with the name of Cidade da Barra do Rio Negro, Portuguese for "The City of the Margins of the Black River". On September 4, 1856, it returned to the name "Manaus".

Nheengatu, also known as Modern Tupi and Amazonic Tupi, is a Tupi–Guarani language. It is spoken throughout the Rio Negro region among the Baniwa, Baré and Warekena peoples, mainly in the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira and the state of Amazonas, Brazil.

Since 2002, it has been one of Amazonas's official languages, along with Apurinã, Baniwa, Dessana, Kanamari, Marúbo, Matis, Matsés, Mawé, Mura, Tariana, Tikuna, Tukano, Waiwai, Waimiri, Yanomami, and Portuguese. Outside of the Rio Negro region, the Nheengatu language has more dispersed speakers in the Baixo Amazonas region (in the state of Amazonas) among the Sateré-Mawé, Maraguá and Mura people. In the Baixo Tapajós and the state of Pará, it is being revitalized by the people of the region, such as the Borari and the Tupinambá, and also among the riverside dwellers themselves.

São Gabriel da Cachoeira (Portuguese: Saint Gabriel of the Waterfall) is a municipality located on the northern shore of the Rio Negro River, in the region of Cabeça do Cachorro, Amazonas state, Brazil.

A whitewater river is classified based on its chemistry, sediments and water colour. Whitewater rivers have high levels of suspended sediments, giving the water a pH that is near-neutral, a high electric conductivity and a pale muddy, café au lait-like colour. Whitewater rivers are of great ecological importance and are important to local fisheries. The major seasonal Amazonian floodplains known as várzea receive their water from them.

The best-known whitewater rivers are Amazonian and have their source in the Andes, but there are also whitewater rivers elsewhere in South America and in other continents.

Baniwa (also known with local variants as Baniva, Baniua, Curipaco, Vaniva, Walimanai, Wakuenai) are indigenous South Americans, who speak the Baniwa language belonging to the Maipurean (Arawak) language family. They live in the Amazon Region, in the border area of Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela and along the Rio Negro and its tributaries.

There are an estimated 7,145 Baniwa in Brazil, 7,000 in Colombia and 3,501 in Venezuela's Amazonas State, according to Brazil's Instituto Socioambiental, but accurate figures are almost impossible to come by given the nature of the rainforest.