RELIEF OF THE AMAZON REGION: MAIN CHARACTERISTICS - GEOGRAPHY - 2025

The relief of the Amazon region of Colombia is composed primarily of extensive plains covered with tropical jungle, with swampy areas and lagoons, crossed by mighty rivers that flow into the Amazon River.

The Amazon region is a large biosphere reserve that is located in the south east of Colombia. It covers the departments of Amazonas, Putumayo, Guainía, Caquetá, Guaviare and Vaupés.

Its relief is the result of multiple geological, geomorphological, climatological, hydrographic, biological and anthropic processes that have given rise to the diversity of the Amazonian landscape.

So it has a geomorphological magnificence with extraordinary landscapes, the product of constant transformations of the relief and geographic space over time.

You may also be interested in the rivers of the Amazon region.

The 3 types of relief of the Amazon region of Colombia

The extension of the Colombian Amazonian territory is mainly a large jungle plain with small elevations and slopes that do not significantly alter the horizontal relief of the region.

However, the Colombian portion of the Amazon region is made up of large differentiated landscapes or specific and contrasting subregions: Amazon plain, Andean-Amazonian foothills and mountains, mountains and islands.

1- Amazon plain

The Colombian Amazon plain, also known as the Amazon plain, is a flattened surface made up of jungle and marshy plains, with a relief that is usually divided into highlands and lowlands.

The highlands of the plain include areas of higher elevation than the floodplains, with maximum altitudes of 100 to 350 meters above sea level, and they concentrate what is known as the mainland forest.

Since the vast horizontality of the plain predominates, there are large areas of lower lands that are prone to being flooded by rains and overflows from the many rivers that cross it.

In this sense, the rivers act as great modeling agents of the landscape and the relief of the region, advancing through the floors of the riverbeds, exerting an erosive power as they pass and flooding the plains.

In these swampy areas, the seasonally flooded forest and the permanently flooded forest are located.

2- Andean-Amazonian Piedmont

The Andean-Amazon foothills are the confluence of the Amazon basin with the Andes mountain range. It has greater topographic accidents.

Its relief is slightly undulating or abrupt, with slight slopes, and is composed of Amazonian slopes, high areas and alluvial or sedimentary valleys.

The Amazonian plains of the piedmont are the prolongation of sedimentary valleys surrounded by rocky and mountainous formations that derive from the Colombian Andean mountain range.

Its formation is due to large amounts of alluvial materials that rivers carry from the interior of the Andes to the Amazon, depositing sediment and moistening the land between the mountains.

3- Mountains, mountains and islands

It is the high jungle, arranged in some small mountain ranges and rocky plateaus that make up the mountain system of the Amazon region of Colombia.

As for the islands, most are located in the Amazon River and are part of indigenous reserves and natural parks, whose habitat is of the flooded tropical humid forest type.

References

1. Alexis Jaramillo-Justinico, Luis Norberto Parra Sánchez, Jesús Orlando Rangel-Churio. (2013). GEOMORPHOLOGY AND STRATIGRAPHY OF QUATERNARY FORMATIONS IN THE AMAZONIAN TRAPEZE REGION. CALDASIA Magazine. Volume 35. Number 2. Institute of Natural Sciences. Science Faculty. National university of Colombia. Retrieved on November 3, 2017 from: magazines.unal.edu.co
2. Amazon Institute for Scientific Research SINCHI. (s / f). SUBREGIONS OF THE COLOMBIAN AMAZON. Regions of the Colombian Amazon. Colombian Amazon region. Amazon Institute for Scientific Research SINCHI. Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development. Retrieved on November 3, 2017 from: sinchi.org.co
3. Olga Lucia Hernandez-Manrique and Luis Naranjo. (2007). CHAPTER 1: GEOGRAPHY OF THE ANDEAN-AMAZONIAN PIEDEMONTE. Conservation scenarios in the Andean-Amazonian foothills of Colombia. WWF Colombia (World Wide Fund For Nature Colombia Office). Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute. Unit of National Natural Parks of Colombia. Retrieved on November 3, 2017 from: researchgate.net
4. Pablo A. Palacios. (2011). CHAPTER 3: PHYSICAL AND HUMAN GEOGRAPHY OF THE AMAZON. Colombian Amazon: Imaginaries and Realities. Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Chair. Amazonian Research Institute (IMANI). National university of Colombia. Amazon Headquarters. Retrieved on November 3, 2017 from: bdigital.unal.edu.co
5. Territorial Environmental Information System of the Colombian Amazon (SIAT-AC). (s / f). PHYSIOGRAPHY AND SOILS. Reference information. Colombian Environmental Information System (SIAC). Amazon Institute for Scientific Research SINCHI. Retrieved on November 3, 2017 from: siatac.co