Info logo
Encyclopedia

  

Rio de la Plata

Home :: Up
Google
www.fastload.org

Rio de la Plata

The Rio de la Plata (or River Plate) is the estuary formed from the combination of the Uruguay River[?] and the Parana River[?]. It is a funnel-shaped indentation on the southern coast of South America, 180 miles (290 km) long. Where the rivers join it is 30 miles (48 km) wide, increasing to 136 miles (219 km) wide where it opens on the Atlantic Ocean. It forms part of the border between Argentina and Uruguay, with the major ports of Buenos Aires in the southwest and Montevideo in the northeast.

An estimated 2 billion cubic feet (57 million cubic meters) of silt is carried into the estuary each year, where the muddy waters are stirred up by winds and tides. The shipping route from the Atlantic to Buenos Aires is kept open by constant dredging[?].

See also Battle of the River Plate.

Reference

  • NASA Space Shuttle Earth Observations Photography database, as of March 8, 2003; [1] (http://earth.jsc.nasa.gov/lores.cgi?PHOTO=STS035-074-055)

Find this helpful?

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
You may copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
To view or edit this article at Wikipedia, follow this link.