Amazonía region in southern
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the ...
comprises the
departments
Department may refer to:
* Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility
Government and military
*Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
of
Amazonas,
Caquetá,
Guainía,
Guaviare,
Putumayo and
Vaupés, and covers an area of 483,000 km², 35% of Colombia's total territory. The region is mostly covered by
tropical rainforest
Tropical rainforests are rainforests that occur in areas of tropical rainforest climate in which there is no dry season – all months have an average precipitation of at least 60 mm – and may also be referred to as ''lowland equator ...
, or jungle, which is a part of the greater
Amazon rainforest
The Amazon rainforest, Amazon jungle or ; es, Selva amazónica, , or usually ; french: Forêt amazonienne; nl, Amazoneregenwoud. In English, the names are sometimes capitalized further, as Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Forest, or Amazon Jungle. ...
.
Biogeographical subregions
The region is bounded by the
East Andes along the western edge and extends to the Venezuelan and Brazilian borders in the east. The northern limit begins with the Guaviare and Vichada Rivers and extends south to the Putumayo and Amazon Rivers.
The Amazon region is divided up into distinct subregions:
* Amazon foothills: bordering the East Andes
*
Caquetá River Caquetá may refer to:
* Caquetá River, a river in Colombia
* Caquetá Territory, a former territory of Colombia
* Caquetá Department
Caquetá Department () is a department of Colombia. Located in the Amazonas region, Caquetá borders wit ...
Plain: the main watershed of this region
*
Inírida River Plain: location of the famous
Cerros de Mavecure
*
Guaviare River
The Guaviare is a tributary of the Orinoco in Colombia. It flows together with the upper Orinoco (until here also called Río Parágua), which it clearly surpasses in length (altogether about 1760 km) and water flow. Thus, the Guaviare is hydrolo ...
Plain: shared with the
Eastern Plains
The Eastern Plains of Colorado refers to a region of the U.S. state of Colorado east of the Rocky Mountains and east of the population centers of the Front Range.
Geography
The Eastern Plains are part of the High Plains, which are the wester ...
*
Putumayo River
The Putumayo River or Içá River ( es, Río Putumayo, pt, Rio Içá) is one of the tributaries of the Amazon River, southwest of and parallel to the Japurá River.
Course
The Putumayo River forms part of Colombia's border with Ecuador, as well ...
Plain: along the southern border
*
Serranía de Chiribiquete
* Amazon Trapezium: the area of land that actually borders with the
Amazon River
The Amazon River (, ; es, Río Amazonas, pt, Rio Amazonas) in South America is the largest river by discharge volume of water in the world, and the disputed longest river system in the world in comparison to the Nile.
The headwaters of t ...
Other important rivers include the Vaupés, Apaporis and Yarí.
Biodiversity
The tropical rainforest classified more specifically as a
tropical moist broadleaf forest
Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Description
TSMF is generally found in large, discon ...
. Within the Colombian Amazon region there are five moist forest
ecoregion
An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of ...
s:
*
Caquetá moist forests
The Caquetá moist forests (NT0107) is an ecoregion of tropical moist broad leaf forest to the east of the Andes in the east of Colombia, with a small section in Brazil, in the Amazon biome.
The forests are in the transition between the Guiana an ...
: the largest part of the Colombian Amazon region centered on the Caquetá, Vaupés, Yarí, and Apaporis Rivers
*
Napo moist forests
The Napo moist forests (NT0142) is an ecoregion in the western Amazon rainforest of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
Geography Location
The Napo moist forests ecoregion covers part of the Amazon basin to the east of the Andes in the north of Peru, ...
: the southwest corner of the Colombian Amazon region which borders the Andes and includes the headwaters of the Caquetá and Putumayo Rivers
*
Solimões-Japurá moist forests: in Colombia this ecoregion is centered on the Putumayo and Amazon Rivers
*
Japurá-Solimões-Negro moist forests: this ecoregion barely extends into Colombia mainly around the Lower Vaupés and Negro Rivers
*
Campinarana
Campinarana (NT0158, ), also called Rio Negro Campinarana, is a neotropical ecoregion in the Amazon biome of the north west of Brazil and the east of Colombia that contains vegetation adapted to extremely poor soil. It includes savanna, scrub an ...
: this ecoregion of white sandy forest and swamps barely extends into Colombia around the Negro River in the Department of Vaupés
Protected areas
* PNN Alto Fragua Indi-Wasi
*
PNN Amacayacu
* PNN Cahuinarí
*
PNN Serranía de Chiribiquete
* RNN Nukak
* PNN La Paya
*
RNN Puinawai
* PNN ío Puré
*
PNN Serranía de los Churumbelos Auka-Wasi
* PNN Tinigua
* PNN Yaigojé Apaporis
See also
*
Amazonas (Colombian department)
*
External links
Territorial-Environmental Information System of Colombian Amazon SIAT-AC website
References
{{Natural regions of Colombia
Amazon rainforest
Natural regions of Colombia
Amazon basin