The Gurguéia River is a river in

Piauí Piaui (, ) is one of the states of Brazil, located in the country's Northeast Region. The state has 1.6% of the Brazilian population and produces 0.7% of the Brazilian GDP. Piaui has the shortest coastline of any coastal Brazilian state at 66&n ...

state of northeastern

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

. The Gurguéia is a

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage ...

of the

Parnaíba River The Parnaíba River ( pt, Rio Parnaíba) is a river in Brazil, which forms the border between the states of Maranhão and Piauí. Its main course is long and the Parnaíba River Basin covers .Ramos, T.P.A.; Ramos, R.T.C.; and Ramos, S.A.Q.A. (2 ...

, which originates in the

Chapada das Mangabeiras The Chapada das Mangabeiras is a mountain range in central Brazil. The range runs northwest–southeast, and separates the basin of the Tocantins River to the southwest from the upper basin of the Parnaiba River to the northeast. The range also fo ...

in the southern portion of the state, and flows north to join the Parnaíba. The Serra Uruçui separates the Gurguéia basin from the Uruçui-Preto basin to the west, and the Serra da Capivara separates the Gurguéia basin from that of the

to the east. The

Cerrado The ''Cerrado'' (, ) is a vast ecoregion of tropical savanna in eastern Brazil, particularly in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Minas Gerais, and the Federal District. The core areas of the Cerrado biome are t ...

savannas occupy most of the Gurguéia basin, while several large enclaves of

Atlantic dry forest The Atlantic dry forests are a tropical dry forest ecoregion of the Atlantic Forest Biome, located in eastern Brazil. Setting The Atlantic dry forests cover an area of , lying between the Cerrado savannas of central Brazil and the Caatinga dry ...

lie east of the river, separating the Cerrado from the dry

Caatinga Caatinga (, ) is a type of semi-arid tropical vegetation, and an ecoregion characterized by this vegetation in interior northeastern Brazil. The name "Caatinga" is a Tupi word meaning "white forest" or "white vegetation" (''caa'' = forest, v ...

shrublands further east.

References

* Rivers of Piauí {{Piauí-river-stub