Wednesday, August 26, 2026 Search My Trip EnglishChinese
World news · travel · culture
Taiwan The Taiwan Times
Taiwan's window to the world

Tocantins River

The 39th longest river in the world

2,450 km

The Tocantins River (Rio Tocantins Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈʁi.u tokɐ̃ˈtʃĩs, tu-], Parkatêjê: Pyti [pɨˈti]) is a river in Brazil, the central fluvial artery of the country. In the Tupi language, its name means "toucan's beak" (Tukã for "toucan" and Ti for "beak"). It runs from south to north for about 2,450 km (1, 520 mi). While sometimes included in definitions of the Amazon basin, the Tocantins is not a branch of the Amazon River, since its waters flow into the Atlantic Ocean via an eastern channel of the Amazon Delta, alongside those of the Amazon proper. It flows through four Brazilian states (Goiás, Tocantins, Maranhão, and Pará) and gives its name to one of Brazil's newest states, formed in 1988 from what was until then the northern portion of Goiás. The Tocantins is one of the largest clearwater rivers in South America.

Flows through: Brazil.

River data from Wikidata (CC0); lengths normalised to a common unit.

Other major rivers

  1. Amazon6,992 km
  2. Nile6,650 km
  3. Yangtze River6,300 km
  4. Bian River5,806 km
  5. Yellow River5,464 km
  6. Paraná River4,880 km
  7. River Congo4,700 km
  8. Mekong River4,350 km