The Amazon River is located in South America and is the second longest river in the world, after the Nile River in Africa. It flows from the Andes Mountains in Peru and travels more than 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles) before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean near the city of Belém, Brazil. The Amazon River has a massive drainage basin that covers an area of more than 7 million square kilometers (2.7 million square miles), which is about the size of Australia. The Amazon River is home to an incredibly diverse ecosystem, with more than 30,000 species of plants and animals found in the region.