page_title: Orinoco
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Orinoco / Geography
caption_attribution_description: Rio Orinoco(river), Estado Amazonas - Venezuela
context_page_description: The Orinoco River is one of the longest rivers in South America at 2,250 kilometres. Its drainage basin, sometimes known as the Orinoquia, covers 880,000 km², with 76.3 percent of it in Venezuela and the remainder in Colombia. It is the fourth largest river in the world by discharge volume of water. The Orinoco River and its tributaries are the major transportation system for eastern and interior Venezuela and the llanos of Colombia. The environment in the Orinoco's basin is extremely diverse; it hosts a wide variety of flora and fauna.
context_section_description: The course of the Orinoco forms a wide ellipsoidal arc, surrounding the Guiana Shield; it is divided in four stretches of unequal length that very roughly correspond to the longitudinal zonation of a typical large river: 
  Upper Orinoco – 286 kilometres (178 mi) long, from its headwaters to the rapids Raudales de Guaharibos, flows through mountainous landscape in a northwesterly direction
  Middle Orinoco – 805 kilometres (500 mi) long, divided into two sectors, the first of which ca. 515 kilometres (320 mi) long has a general westward direction down to the confluence with the Atabapo and Guaviare rivers at San Fernando de Atabapo; the second flows northward, for about 290 kilometres (180 mi), along the Venezuelan–Colombian border, flanked on both sides by the westernmost granitic upwellings of the Guiana Shield which impede the development of a flood plain, to the Atures rapids near the confluence with the Meta River at Puerto Carreño
  Lower Orinoco – 959 kilometres (596 mi) long with a well-developed alluvial plain, flows in a northeast direction, from Atures rapids down to Piacoa in front of Barrancas
  Delta Amacuro – 200 kilometres (120 mi) long that empties into the Gulf of Paría and the Atlantic Ocean, a very large delta, some 22,500 km² (8,700 sq mi) and 370 kilometres (230 mi) at its widest.
  At its mouth, the Orinoco River forms a wide delta that branches off into hundreds of rivers and waterways that flow through 41,000 km² (16,000 sq mi) of swampy forests. In the rainy season, the Orinoco River can swell to a breadth of 22 kilometres (14 mi) and a depth of 100 metres (330 ft).
  Most of the important Venezuelan rivers are tributaries of the Orinoco River, the largest being the Caroní, which joins it at Puerto Ordaz, close to the Llovizna Falls. A peculiarity of the Orinoco river system is the Casiquiare canal, which starts as an arm of the Orinoco, and finds its way to the Rio Negro, a tributary of the Amazon, thus forming a 'natural canal' between Orinoco and Amazon.
caption: The Orinoco River, here in Amazonas State, Venezuela
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