Editing Amazon River (section)

=== Mouth ===
[[File:Amazon-river-delta-NASA.jpg|thumb|Satellite image of the mouth of the Amazon River, from the north looking south]]

[[Belém]] is the major city and port at the mouth of the river at the Atlantic Ocean. The definition of where exactly the mouth of the Amazon is located, and how wide it is, is a matter of dispute, because of the area's peculiar geography. The [[Pará River|Pará]] and the Amazon are connected by a series of river channels called ''furos'' near the town of [[Breves, Pará|Breves]]; between them lies [[Marajó]], the world's largest combined river/sea island.

If the Pará river and the Marajó island ocean frontage are included, the Amazon [[estuary]] is some {{cvt|325|km|sp=us}} wide.<ref name=guo /> In this case, the width of the mouth of the river is usually measured from Cabo Norte, the cape located straight east of [[Pracuúba]] in the Brazilian state of [[Amapá]], to Ponta da Tijoca near the town of [[Curuçá]], in the state of [[Pará]].

A more conservative measurement excluding the Pará river estuary, from the mouth of the [[Araguari River (Amapá)|Araguari River]] to Ponta do Navio on the northern coast of [[Marajó]], would still give the mouth of the Amazon a width of over {{cvt|180.|km|sp=us}}. If only the river's main channel is considered, between the islands of Curuá (state of Amapá) and Jurupari (state of Pará), the width falls to about {{cvt|15|km|sp=us}}.

The plume generated by the river's discharge covers up to 1.3 million km<sup>2</sup> and is responsible for muddy bottoms influencing a wide area of the tropical north Atlantic in terms of salinity, pH, light penetration, and sedimentation.<ref name="auto" />