Araguaia

The Araguaia, or Rio Araguaia, is a major river in Brazil. It is a right-bank tributary of the Tocantins River, and is commonly described as about 2,500 kilometers long, rising in the central Brazilian highlands and flowing generally northward through the states of Mato Grosso, Pará and Tocantins before joining the Tocantins.

Geography and ecology: The Araguaia basin spans portions of the Cerrado and Amazonian regions and supports diverse ecosystems, including floodplain forests and savannas. The river sustains numerous communities that rely on fishing and water transportation. Along its middle course lies Bananal Island (Ilha do Bananal), part of the Tocantins-Araguaia region, which is widely recognized as the world’s largest river island and a notable feature of the basin.

Human use and conservation: The Araguaia basin supports traditional livelihoods and increasingly faces pressures from agricultural expansion, deforestation, and proposed or developing hydroelectric projects. Protected areas and indigenous communities are important stakeholders in regional conservation and resource management efforts.

History: The river valley has a long Indigenous presence and later hosted multiethnic communities involved in regional development. In the early 1970s, the Araguaia region became the focus of a guerrilla campaign during Brazil’s military dictatorship, known as the Araguaia Guerrilla War. The insurgency was suppressed, and the episode remains a subject of historical and human-rights discussions, with investigations continuing in the following decades.

See also: Bananal Island, Tocantins-Araguaia region, Araguaia Guerrilla War.