America

Label from 1996 exhibit: Decorative cartouche on this map features a waterfall, probably located on the Paraná River. This important South American waterway, together with its tributaries, forms the largest river in the New World (after the Amazon and Mississippi rivers). The Paraná River, which means "Father of Waters" in the Guarani language (spoken by people living in Bolivia, Paraguay, and Southern Brazil), extends from the confluence of the Grande and Paranaíba rivers in southern Brazil to the Rio de la Plata, where Argentina and Uruguay converge--a distance of 2,484 miles. The Spanish used this great river as the principal thoroughfare for their conquest of South America. In 1523--three years before Europeans first explored the river--local Indians provided information about the Paraná River to Sebastián del Cano, who then included a fairly accurate rendering of the waterway on a map of the estuary of the Rio de la Plata.