Bird's Eye Views of the Amazon River Basin

The mighty Amazon River is the king of rivers.  At 6.4k km (4k mi.) in length, it's either #1 or #2 in length depending on definition.  Measured by discharge, it's not even close: the Amazon pumps an average of over 200k cubic meters (over 7 million cubic feet) of water into the Atlantic Ocean every second, roughly 5x its closest competitor.  Award-winning contributor and drone pilot Fabio Knoll is a native of Brazil; his aerial video showcasing this spectacular natural resource is magnificent.

Top contributor Jturner created this stunning drone video of a very different side of Bolivia, one far from the Andes Mountains and the salt flats that many associate with this South American country.  It was filmed near Rurrenabaque, a small town in the Beni River in the Department (state) of Beni, in the northern part of the country.  Here is lowland rainforest in the Amazon River Basin; much like its neighbor Peru, there is an "Andes Bolivia" and an "Amazon Bolivia" which offer vastly different landscapes.  This video was a DVOW nominee in June, 2019.

Prepare to be amazed by this stunning drone video of the northwestern Amazon Rainforest, compliments of contributor AlTheGreat.  This vast jungle is one of the principal geographical features of South America, comparable in importance to the Andes Mountains system.  It covers an enormous area of over 5.5 million square km (about 2.1 million square mi.), about 75% of the area of the Amazon River Basin.  The western and northwestern reaches of Amazonia (as it's sometimes called) lie in Peru and Colombia.

The Amazon Rainforest is an immense area, covering 5.5 million square km (2.1 million square mi) of territory in South America.  Roughly 60% of the rainforest is situated in Brazil, with the balance spread around eight other countries.  In this stunning drone video, contributor Cristian Dimitrius give us an aerial tour of portions of this irreplaceable natural resource in Brazil and French Guyana.  The Amazon River is the world's largest source of freshwater apart from the Arctic icecaps.  

Colombia has some of the most remote wilderness areas of the Western Hemisphere, which explains why, even now, the country periodically announces new "discoveries". In this drone video by contributor la.drones, you'll get an aerial view of one of these recent finds: a series of rock paintings deep in the jungles of the Guaviare Department, in the south-central part of the country. These paintings (which may be 20k years old) had been "hidden" from the rest of the world for eons.  This video was a DVOW finalist in September, 2019.

The immensity of the lower Amazon River in Brazil is such that even very large cruise ships can access it and cruise some ways up from its mouth on the Atlantic Ocean.  Given the lack of road infrastructure in this vast region, many travelers find that this is in fact the easiest and most comfortable way to see the storied Amazon rainforests.  In this video, contributor Exclusive Aerials was able to fly a drone over the cruise ship Crystal Serenity as it was cruising the mighty river at sunset.  

Despite the fact that the great Amazon River is most closely associated with Brazil (the location of its mouth), a very large percentage of Peru is part of the Amazon Basin as well - more of the country than that which is part of the Andes Mountains system.  In this amazing drone video, content creator Danielgarate77 used a hexacopter drone to film a boat cruising one of the many Amazon tributaries in the Pacaya-Samiria preserve in northeastern Peru, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage natural site.  

In this magnificent video by Seven Cinematics, you will be taken into the heart of the Peruvian rainforest.  Iquitos is the primary city of northeastern Peru and essentially the capital of the Amazonian portion of the country.  Peru's ninth largest city by population, the city  sits on the great river, whose headwaters lie to the west and southwest of the city.  Among other things, it serves as one of the main gateways for travelers heading into the rainforest which covers a sizeable percentage of the country's surface area.  

Contributor Travelsinsouthamerica created this amazing drone video of the area of Iquitos, in the northeastern corner of Peru.  Iquitos is the capital city of the country's Maynas province, not far from the borders with neighboring Colombia and Brazil.  Iquitos is considered one of the prime gateways to the vast Amazon rainforest, which covers much of Peru east of the Andes Mountains in addition to a good deal of northern Brazil and several other countries in the northern part of South America.  

Neils Ahmes created this beautiful drone video from Tarapoto, a city northern Peru.  It's situated northeast of the capital city Lima, on a plateau which sits between the Andes Mountains and the Amazon River Basin.  It's used as a departure point for trips into the Amazon rainforest which covers much of the northeastern part of the country.  It's the largest city in the San Martin region, which is the transition region between the two main topographies of the country - mountains and jungle.  

Niels Ahrens created this stunning drone video of Iquitos, the de-facto capital of the Amazon Basin region which covers most of eastern Peru.  It sits on the great waterway, the world's largest by water flow, just upstream from where it's joined by its Napo tributary.  For a large city of nearly 500,000 (one of Peru's ten largest), Iquitos is fantastically remote - surrounded by massive areas of rainforest, it has no road access.  It serves as the primary jumping-off point for journeys into the heart of the Amazonian jungle.  

The Mighty Amazon River becomes "mighty" in part due to the many tributaries that feed it as it courses through the vast area of rainforest known as the Amazon Basin in northern South America.  One of these is the Nanay River, in northeastern Peru.  The river runs about 315 km (around 200 mi.) before joining the Amazon at the city of Iquitos, the main city in the Peruvian Amazon region.   In this video by contributor Niels Ahmes, you'll get a bird's eye view of the Nanay as it joins the larger waterway.