page_title: Río de la Plata
section_title: Drainage basin
hierarchical_section_title: Río de la Plata / Hydrology / Drainage basin
caption_attribution_description: Español: La bahía de Samborombón English: Satellite photo of the River Plate Polski: Zdjęcie satelitarne rzeki La Plata
context_page_description: The Río de la Plata —named River Plate in British English and the Commonwealth and La Plata River in other English-speaking countries—is the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay and the Paraná rivers at Punta Gorda. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean, forming a funnel-shaped indentation on the southeastern coastline of South America. Depending on the geographer, the Río de la Plata may be considered a river, an estuary, a gulf or a marginal sea. It is the widest river in the world, with a maximum width of 220 kilometres.
  The river is about 290 kilometres long, and it widens from about 2 kilometres at its source to about 220 kilometres at its mouth. It forms part of the border between Argentina and Uruguay, with the major ports and capital cities of Buenos Aires and Montevideo on its western and northern shores, respectively. The coasts of the river are the most densely populated areas of Uruguay and Argentina.
context_section_description: The Río de la Plata's drainage basin (sometimes called the Platine basin or Platine region) is the 3,170,000-square-kilometre (1,220,000 sq mi) hydrographical area that drains to the Río de la Plata. It includes areas of southeastern Bolivia, southern and central Brazil, the entire country of Paraguay, most of Uruguay, and northern Argentina. Making up about one fourth of the continent's surface, it is the second largest drainage basin in South America (after the Amazon basin) and one of the largest in the world.
caption: Satellite image of the Paraná and Uruguay rivers emptying into the Río de la Plata. Due to the relatively calm surface of the estuary and the angle of the Sun relative to the satellite, the current of the river flowing out into the Atlantic is visible.
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