tropical plant

 Amazon Interactive
Where does the word "Amazon" come from?

Forest Panorama

A Spanish explorer's wife? No, that's not right.

Some explorers, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, named geographic features after friends and relatives. However, the Spanish conquistadors who explored South America in the sixteenth century were very religious. They usually named things after saints, or they used the local indigenous name for a place. "Amazon," however, was neither of these.

Try again!


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