The person seeks for knowledge of mysteries of the planet from the first days of existence. Today there is an opportunity to learn what could not even be presented earlier. For example, what widest river in the world?
The widest river in the world
La Plata is known as the widest river in the world. It was formed from confluence Parana and Uruguay and is in the southeast of South America. Total length of the river is 290 kilometers from a source to the place of its confluence with the Atlantic Ocean. Its width in the bottleneck is 48 kilometers, and in a point of confluence with the Atlantic Ocean - 220 kilometers. The river serves as natural border between Uruguay and Argentina. In a southwest part of the river are located Buenos Aires - the capital of Argentina - and its main ports. In a northwest part of the river there is a city of Montevideo - the capital and the main port of Uruguay.
By the way, only a part of geographers consider La Plata the river. Many scientists believe that having filled in it, to be exact, the delta of the Parana Rivers and Uruguay because of salt content in water.
River basin
The main inflows of La Plata are the Parana Rivers and Uruguay. If to include in the basin of La Plata the main inflow of Parana - the river Paraguay, then its total area will be near the one fifth area of all South America. The river flows in the territory of the southern and central Brazil, in the southeast of Bolivia, on the most part of Uruguay, in the north of Argentina and passes across all territory of Paraguay. Annually about 57 million CBM of soil are washed away in waters of La Plata. For ensuring passage of the vessels from Buenos Aires to the Atlantic Ocean the regular zemlecherpatelny works directed to deepenings of a bottom and clarification of the river from silt are performed.
Name of the river
The name of the river is translated from Spanish as "The silver river" and it was called so not because of color, and because of a belief that the river conducts to legendary ""Sierra de la Plata"" - the "Silver mountain" rich with silver deposits. But there are no actual confirmations of existence of this mountain. Also there is an alternative name of the river in English language - ""River Plate"" or the river Pleyt - and it is not a spelling error. The fact is that in the 12th century and the late English word ""plate"" mattered "silver" or "gold". Having received the name at the time of sir Francis Drake, the river which the whole world knows as La Plata, and remained the river Pleyt for British.
Residents of Argentina and Uruguay from the areas relating to a river basin La Plata speak special Spanish the dialect called la-platsky Spanish.
Flora and fauna
River basin flora La Plata is very different. In its east part on heights rich coniferous forests where the paransky fir-tree relating to valuable soft breeds of wood grows are located. In the flooded marshy areas such plants as a water hyacinth, the Amazonian water lily, a ceropegia thyroid and a liana grow. The western regions are covered with meadows with a juicy grass, used as pastures for walking of the cattle. As for fauna, the rare species of dolphins - a la-platsky dolphin lives in a river basin. Also here it is possible to find different types of sea turtles. Waters of La Plata literally teem with fish, including such types as som, a carnivorous piranha and even a dolphin valuable the similarity with a salmon.