Part of the country series of articles.
TRAVEL ADVISORY: EXERCISE HEIGHTENED CAUTIONPARSTATE advises that Amazonas has limited infrastructure and medical facilities outside Manaus and Belém. River travel carries real risks and Commonwealth consular presence is limited to those two cities. Travellers should register with the nearest consulate before entering the interior.
| Republic of Amazonas | |
|---|---|
| Federal Republic | |
 |
|
| Capital | Manaus |
| Languages | Tupinambá, Nheengatu, Yanomami, Portuguese creole, Spanish, and many indigenous languages |
| Population | 4,100,000 |
The Republic of Amazonas is a federal republic in northwestern South America, almost entirely covered by the largest surviving rainforest in the world. It is a quasi-indigenous state with a long and difficult relationship with its neighbour, Brasil. Perhaps because of its geography, it has an unusually weak federal government that concentrates authority over the navigable rivers, which function as the highways of the country. It is governed from Manaus, which has been the principal river port of the basin for over three hundred years. It also maintains close relations with the Commonwealth and the UN, and has drawn international interest in the protection of its tremendous forests.
It is one of the poorest countries in the Americas, despite a momentary and spectacular period of wealth during a rubber boom in the 1880s. Its electric light system is one of the oldest in the world, and its capital retains a grand opera house from the period. Rubber seedlings were eventually taken to Malaya, which brought prices down and undercut the basin, ending the country’s brief period of prosperity.
The interior is choked with lush jungle, and mostly unmapped and undeveloped. Police may travel for days between towns, and this isolation has attracted an undesirable population of foreigners, among them mercenaries, illegal loggers, wildcat miners, drug traffickers and fleeing genocidaires. Its economy is subsistent and tribal, and much of the federal budget is raised from foreign aid and various grants for the protection of the forests. It is also famous for its languages, principally Nheengatu and Tupinambá, which are spoken throughout the basin. Like Brasil, Spanish is the working language, but proficiency degrades outside of the towns.