Штат Амазонас в Бразилии и Венесуэле

State of Brazil
the state in Venezuela

Amazonas is a state of Brazil, located in the North Region in the north western corner of the country. It is the largest Brazilian state by area and the ninth largest country subdivision in the world. It is the largest country subdivision in South America, being greater than the areas of Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay combined. Mostly located in the Southern Hemisphere, Amazonas is the third largest country subdivision in the Southern Hemisphere after the Australian states of Western Australia and Queensland. Located entirely in the Western Hemisphere, it is the fourth largest country subdivision in the Western Hemisphere after Greenland, Nunavut, and Alaska. If independent, Amazonas could become the sixteenth largest country in the world, slightly larger than Mongolia. Neighbouring states are (from the north clockwise) Roraima, Pará, Mato Grosso, Rondônia, and Acre. It also borders the nations of Peru, Colombia and Venezuela. This includes the Departments of Amazonas, Vaupés and Guainía in Colombia, as well as the Amazonas state in Venezuela, and the Loreto Region in Peru. Amazonas is named after the Amazon River, and was formerly part of the Spanish Empire's Viceroyalty of Peru, a region called Spanish Guyana. It was settled by the Portuguese moving northwest from Brazil in the early 18th century and incorporated into the Portuguese empire after the Treaty of Madrid in 1750. It became a state under the First Brazilian Republic in 1889. Most of the state is tropical jungle; cities are clustered along navigable waterways and are accessible only by boat or plane. The capital and largest city is Manaus, a modern city of 2.1 million inhabitants in the middle of the jungle on the Amazon River, 1,500 km upstream from the Atlantic Ocean. Nearly half the state's population lives in the city; the other large cities, Parintins, Manacapuru, Itacoatiara, Tefé, and Coari are also along the Amazon River in the eastern half of the state.

The name was originally given to the Amazon River that runs through the state by the Spaniard Francisco de Orellana in 1541. Claiming to have come across a warlike tribe of Natives, with whom he fought, he likened them to the Amazons of Greek mythology, giving them the same name of Río de las Amazonas.

At one time the Amazon River flowed westward, perhaps as part of a proto Congo (Zaïre) river system from the interior of present day Africa when the continents were joined as part of western Gondwana. Fifteen million years ago, the Andes were formed by the collision of the South American Plate with the Nazca Plate (eastern Pacific oceanic) plate. The rise of the Andes and the linkage of the Brazilian and Guyana bedrock shields, blocked the river and caused the Amazon to become a vast inland sea. Gradually this inland sea became a massive swampy, freshwater lake and the marine inhabitants adapted to life in freshwater. For example, over 20 species of stingray, most closely related to those found in the Pacific Ocean, can be found today in the fresh waters of the Amazon. About ten million years ago, waters worked through the sandstone to the west and the Amazon began to flow eastward. At this time the Amazon rainforest was born. During the Ice Age, sea levels dropped and the great Amazon lake rapidly drained and became a river. Three million years later, the ocean level receded enough to expose the Central American isthmus and allow mass migration of mammal species between the Americas. The Ice Ages caused tropical rainforest around the world to retreat. Although debated, it is believed that much of the Amazon reverted to savanna and montane forest. Savanna divided patches of rainforest into "islands" and separated existing species for periods long enough to allow genetic differentiation. A similar rainforest retreat took place in Africa, where Delta core samples suggest that even the mighty Congo watershed was void of rainforest at this time. When the ice ages ended, the forest was again joined, and the species that were once one, had diverged significantly enough to be designated as separate species, adding to the tremendous diversity of the region. About 6,000 years ago, sea levels rose about 130 meters, once again causing the river to be inundated like a long, giant freshwater lake.

The pre Columbian Amazonas was inhabited by seminomadic peoples whose livelihood mixed occasional agriculture with a fishing and hunter gatherer lifestyle. Because of Christopher Columbus' misunderstanding of the continent at which he had arrived, the native population were and are denominated "índios" by the Portuguese. Approximately two thousand Indian tribes lived in the region in the sixteenth century, perhaps amounting to some millions of people, but phenomena such as disease and assimilation to Brazilian culture caused their numbers to fall to approximately three hundred thousand, and two hundred tribes, by the end of the twentieth century. Certain uncontacted tribes still exist in the region.

In the colonial time, the territory which today belongs to the State of Amazonas, was a combination of treaties, expeditions, evangelism and military occupations. Scarce but recorded claims and indigenous uprisings in the region, were initially made by the Spanish Empire through the Treaty of Tordesillas and after the Portuguese Empire by the First Treaty of San Ildefonso. The State also includes territory from failed attempts at colonization by the European powers, such as England and the Dutch empire. The first Spanish expedition was by Francisco de Orellana in conjunction with Catholic priest Gaspar de Carvajal, who documented the expedition. He reported a conflict against indigenous women which led to the current name of the river, and then to the current name of the region and the state (Amazonas in English: Amazons). The second Spanish expedition was by Pedro de Ursúa, intending to prove the previous expedition, but resulted in the Spanish Kingdom dropping the attempt to colonize the region. After the unification of the Iberian kingdoms, Portugal launched an expedition on the river [but in reverse from Francisco de Orellana, at the mouth of the river to the site of the present day city of Quito, capital of Ecuador], with the intention of attaching Spanish lands (comprising the current territory of the Brazilian Amazon) to the Portuguese Kingdom. After the dissolution of the Iberian Union, Portuguese and Spanish possessions in the region were undefined, resulting in internal conflicts in the region between Portugal and Spain. The Portuguese Crown later asserted the principle of uti possidetis, with respect to the region. This was the first assertion of the principle from Roman law of uti possidetis, ita possideatis, (Latin, "who has possession, has dominion"), analogous to English common law "Squatters rights". Due account may have been taken of John Locke's labour theory of property. Conflicting issues arose between what was granted by law in the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), and the subsequent reality of colonial expansion: the Spanish, eastward from the Pacific coastal plains (though restrained by the Andes), and the Portuguese, westward (aided by the waterways and lowlands of the mighty Amazon). The Treaty of Madrid (13 January 1750) – that determined the border between the Spanish possessions and southern Portuguese Brazil – had first enunciated the principle that new states, at the time of their creation shall have dominion over the lands that were settled as colonies. It implicitly opened the door to claims by prior possession in the vast lands of the north. After the independence of Brazil in 1822, the current borders of the Amazonas State were still undefined – at that time being with Gran Colombia. The internal conflicts within that neighbour country resulted in the emergence of Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Panama. Brazil signed the Treaty Vásquez Cobo–Martins (1908) (with those countries) finally entitling those possessions in the north to Brazil. One region is marked by the geodesic line Apóporis Tabatinga; and the other is the municipal area of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, on the Brazil Colombia border.

Starting about 1580, without effective occupation, English, Dutch, French (and even some Irish) searching for so called Drogas do Sertão (spices of the backlands) had established some outposts upstream of the mouth of the Amazon.

The boundary between the Portuguese and Spanish domination of the Amazon was eventually fixed at the Rio Javari (river that rises on the border between Amazonas state, Brazil, and Loreto department, Peru) by the Treaty of Madrid in 1750. By the mid 18th century, the effective boundary between the two empires, the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru and Portuguese Brazil, had shifted to the area of the confluence of the Rio Negro and Amazon Rivers, in upper Amazonia. While the Treaty of Madrid in 1750 implicitly recognized the principle of uti possiditis, it did not actually specify the northern borders of the country. At that time, the border of contention between Spanish and Portuguese domains was in the upper Solimões, at the junction of the Rio Negro. In the upper Salomoes, Spanish missionary influence was being displaced, and the Viceroy was indifferent to colonization, but Portuguese settlements were not yet established. Part of the northern boundary between Brazil and what was then British Guyana, was set by the Spanish Boundary line Commission of Yturriaga and Solano (1757–1763). After two indecisive wars between Portuguese and Spanish colonial forces 1761–1763 and 1776–1777, the border between the Spanish and Portuguese possessions, the Viceroyalty of Peru (and successor states) and Grão Pará region of Brazil, was set between 1781 and 1791 by negotiation.

In 1821, Grão Pará and Rio Negro provinces became the unified Grão Pará. The following year, Brazil proclaimed its independence and Grão Pará became the Province of Pará of state of Brazil. When Emperor Pedro I declared independence from Portugal, in 1822, he had to fight also the provinces of Grão Pará and Maranhão. In 1823, a ship commanded by British officer John Pascoe Grenfell arrived at the port of Belém, to combat rebels. Only in August 1824 did the new governor swear loyalty to the Brazilian Emperor. The Province of Pará, including the comarca of Rio Negro, the upper Amazon region, was incorporated into the Empire of Brazil in 1824. A revolt in 1832 demanded the autonomy of the Amazonas region as a separate province of Pará. The rebellion was suppressed, but the Amazons were able to send a representative to the Imperial Court, Friar José dos Santos Inocentes, who got up the creation of the District of the Upper Amazon. During Cabanagem in 1835–40, the Amazon remained loyal to the imperial government and not joined the revolt. As a sort of reward for loyalty, the Province of Amazonas was officially created by Emperor Pedro II in 1850.

From the mid 19th century, the territory began to receive migrants from the northeast seeking a better life. Attracted by the rubber boom, they settled in important Amazonian cities such as Manaus, Tabatinga, Parintins, Itacoatiara and Barcelos, the first capital of Amazonas. The state had an era of splendor in the 1890s, at the peak of the rubber boom. However, the economic gains were largely the result of great human suffering: untold thousands of enslaved Amerindian seringueiros (rubber tappers) died through disease and overwork. Manaus, which already boasted as the capital administrative of the State, experienced a great population growth and the economic advancement, resulting mainly from exports of raw materials until then exclusively from Amazon Region. With the wealth generated by the production and export of natural rubber (Hevea brasiliensis), the amazonian capital received large works such as the port of Manaus, the Amazonas Opera House, Palace of Justice, Reservoir of Mocó, the first network of electric energy and public transport services as trams. Vista as a reference, your headquarters became a symbol of prosperity and civilization for the Amazonas State, being the center of important artistic and cultural events. Bloomed so trade in luxury products and superfluous, with men and women from all over the world parading its streets and avenues, at purchase of the so called "black gold", as was dubbed the natural rubber, to resell big profits in the main capitals of Europe and in the United States from 1910, difficult times began,

Free trade zone of Manaus (also called Manaus Industrial Pole or Industrial Pole of the Brazilian Amazon) was an economic development project implemented by Act number 3 173 of 3 June 1957, that reframed, enlarged and established tax incentives for deployment of an industrial, commercial and agricultural pole in a physical area of 10 000 km2, with headquarters in the city of Manaus. Despite the adoption in 1957, that project has only been in fact deployed, by Decree Law number 288 of 28 February 1967. The project was implemented by the Brazilian military government, at first, the benefits of this project was extended to the Western Amazon, formed by the States of Amazonas, Acre, Rondônia and Roraima. On August 20, 2008, the free trade area of Macapá, which was included in the Council of Manaus by Free Zone Superintendence (Suframa) and thus, the Amapá received the same benefit given for other Amazonian Brazilian States. The creation of the Manaus free trade zone aimed at promoting the occupation of this region population and raise the level of security to maintain your integrity in addition, brake deforestation in the region and recoup the preservation and sustainability of biodiversity present in the state. In its years of existence, the story of the Manaus Free Trade Zone is divided into four phases: the first, from 1967 to 1975, characterized the reference in the country's industrial policy for the import substitution of final goods and formation of the internal market; the second, from 1975 to 1990, was characterized by the adoption of measures promoting the domestic industry inputs, especially in the State of São Paulo (largest consumer at the time); the third, in 1991 and 1996, came into force on new Industrial policy and foreign trade, marked by the opening of the Brazilian economy, reducing the import tax for the rest of the country and emphasis on quality and productivity, with the implementation of the Brazilian policy quality and productivity (PBPQ in Portuguese) and Industrial competitiveness program; and the fourth and last, of the 1996–2002, marks its adaptation to a globalized economy scenarios and the adjustments demanded by the effects of the Real plan, as the movement of privatization and deregulation.

Characterized by being the largest of the States of Brazil, with an area of Amazonas has most of its land occupied by forest reserves and water. The access to the region is mainly made by waterway or by plane. It is located in the North of Brazil, bordering the States of Mato Grosso, Rondônia, and Acre to the South; Pará and Roraima, in the North East beyond the republics of Peru for 1,430 km along the Yavari river, Colombia for 1,644 km and Venezuela for 996 km to the Southwest and Northwest respectively. Most of its territory is in the time zone UTC−4 (with 4 hours less than Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Thirteen municipalities in the West of the State are in the time zone UTC−5; it is one of the States of Brazil that contains two time zones in its territory. Amazonas is split by the Amazon river, the largest river by volume of water in the world. In the state, the river has several tributaries: Negro, Madeira, Purus, Japurá, Juruá, Içá or Putumayo and many other confluent. Most rivers are navigable for large ships.

The average temperature varies very little by season, between , the rainfall varies from 50 to 250 mm per month, averaging 2100 mm per year. Most of the state is in the tropical rainforest climate zone, a type of tropical climate in which there is no dry season—all months have mean precipitation values of at least 60 mm. Its latitude is within five degrees of the equator—which is dominated by the Intertropical Convergence Zone. The equatorial climate is denoted Af in the Köppen climate classification.

The relief of the state is relatively low, since in the region, 85% does not surpass of altitude. The highest points of the state are the Pico da Neblina, with an approximate height of , followed by Pico Phelps or Pico 31 of March of , located in the border between Venezuela and Brazil, both mountains are in the municipality of Santa Isabel do Rio Negro and ironically, are the highest in Brazil.

This population represents 1.9% of the population in Brazil. The chief commercial cities are Barcelos, Benjamin Constant, Eirunepe, Itacoatiara, Lábrea, Manacapuru, Manicoré, Parintins, and Tefé. The state achieved a very great population growth in the early 20th century, due to the golden period of rubber, and after installation of the Industrial Pole of Manaus, in the 1960s. The state still maintains population rates above the national average. In the 1950s the state had a population growth of 3.6% per year, while Brazil has maintained a growth of 3.2%. In the period between the years 1991 and 2000, Amazon grew by 2.7% per annum while the national average remained at 1.6%. For 2018, the estimate is 4,080,611 inhabitants. The composition of Amazonian population by gender shows that for every 100 female residents of the state there are 96 men; this small imbalance between the sexes is because women have a life expectancy of eight years higher than that of men. However, the migration to the state is mostly male. The capital, Manaus, is the largest city in the northern region, with about 2,145,444 inhabitants. 52% of the state's population lives in the city. Amazonas is the second largest precinct in northern Brazil, with 2,428,098 voters, according to the Superior Electoral Court. Urbanization: 77.6% (2006); Population growth: 3.3% (1991–2000); Houses: 819,000 (2006). The 2022 National Census revealed the following numbers: Pardo (Multiracial) people (68.80%), White people (18.40%), Indigenous people (7.70%), Black people (4.90%). Amazonas is the Brazilian state with the biggest indigenous population, and 53 out of the known 274 indigenous languages in Brazil are spoken in Amazonas. According to a 2013 genetic study, the ancestry of the inhabitants of Manaus is 45.9% European, 37.8% Native American and 16.3% African.

Portuguese is the official national language, and thus the primary language taught in schools. But English and Spanish are part of the official high school curriculum. Nheengatu, an indigenous Tupian language, also has official status in the municipality of São Gabriel da Cachoeira and has a few thousand speakers in that region.

Paulista University (Unip AM) (Universidade Paulista). University Nilton Lins. Lutheran University of Brazil (Universidade Luterana do Brasil (ULBRA)). University Center of Amazon Higher Education (Portuguese: Centro Universitário de Educação Superior de Amazonas (CIESA)). Instituto de Ensino Superior Materdei. University Literatus (Uni Cel). Metropolitan College (FAMETRO) (Portuguese: Faculdade Metropolitana). Amazon Baptist Graduate School (ESBAM) (Portuguese: Escola Superior Batista do Amazonas). Laureate International University Uninorte (Laureate Uninorte). DeVry Martha Falcao. Unilasalle.

The industrial sector is the largest component of GDP at 69.9%, followed by the service sector at 23.93% (2012). Agriculture represents 3.6% of GDP (2004). Amazonas exports: mobile phones 48.7%, others electronics 19.5%, motorcycles 7.7% (2002). Share of the Brazilian economy: 1.5% (IBGE: 2015). Amazonas economy was once reliant almost entirely upon rubber; today it has wide and varied industries, including the farming of cassava, oranges, and other agricultural products. Recently the Brazilian government is pursuing the development of industries whose main focus will be the exporting of consumer goods. Due to its geographical proximity to the markets in the northern hemisphere and Amazon countries, like Venezuela, they believe this move will have a great economic impact not only in the north region of Brazil but in the entire country. Over the last decades, a system of federal investments and tax incentives have turned the surrounding region into a major industrial center (the Free Economic Zone of Manaus). The mobile phone and game console companies Flextronics, LG and Sony run manufacturing plants in Manaus. Other major electronics and motorcycle manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics, Honda and Yamaha have plants as well.

Tourism is now focused on ecotourism, centered in the cities of Barcelos, Manaus, Parintins, Presidente Figueredo, and Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira.

Eduardo Gomes International Airport(MAO) in Manaus employs roughly 3,300 people, among employees of Infraero, public agencies, concession holders, airlines and auxiliary services. The airport has two passenger terminals, one for scheduled flights and the other for regional aviation. It also has three cargo terminals: Terminal I was opened in 1976, Terminal II in 1980 and Terminal III in 2004. Eduardo Gomes International Airport is Brazil's third largest in freight movement, handling the import and export demand from the Manaus Industrial Complex. Other airports include Tabatinga International, and a further 31 domestic airports including Tefé (regular flights to Manaus by Rico Linhas Aereas), Parintins (Julio Belem), Coari, Lábrea, Manicoré, Novo Aripuanã, Borba, Itacoatiara, Presidente Figueiredo, São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Cucuí, Iaguarete, Benjamin Constant, Eirunepé, and Boca do Acre.

BR 174 from Manaus 519 km via Jundia and Novo Paraiso to Boa Vista (Roraima), BR 210, BR 230 (Rodovia Transamazônica) The Trans Amazonian Highway east from Itaituba (Para) 1266 km via Humaitá to Lábrea, mostly unpaved and impassable in the rainy season, BR 307, BR 317, BR 319 for 869 km south via Caiero, Humaita to Pôrto Velho (Rondônia state), mostly unpaved and impassable in the rainy season, BR 411, BR 413. One road to Roraima state: BR 174. One road to Para state: BR 230. One road to Rondônia state: BR 319. One road to Acre state: BR 317, plus BR 364 from Rondônia to Acre passes through Amazonas for 8.6 km.

The state also holds one of the greatest folkloric festivals of the country: Parintins Folklore Festival, which combines music, dance and all the cultural roots of the state, and the Amazonas Opera Festival.