Image: Wikimedia Commons

swamp

Type of wetland

Entityecological classification mire typeQ166735

Instance of: ecological classification
, mire type
Subclass of: wetland
, landscape

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

A swamp is a forested wetland. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in creating this environment. Swamps vary in size and are located all around the world. The water of a swamp may be fresh water, brackish water, or seawater. Freshwater swamps form along large rivers or lakes where they are critically dependent upon rainwater and seasonal flooding to maintain natural water level fluctuations. Saltwater swamps are found along tropical and subtropical coastlines. Some swamps have hammocks, or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodic inundation or soil saturation. The two main types of swamp are "true" or swamp forests and "transitional" or shrub swamps. In the boreal regions of Canada, the word swamp is colloquially used for what is more formally termed a bog, fen, or muskeg. Some of the world's largest swamps are found along major rivers such as the Amazon, the Mississippi, and the Congo.

Overview

All data

53 statements · 17% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Different from: marsh
bog
Swamp
Q30312340
Q17249182
Mallín
OpenStreetMap tag: wetland=swamp
Partially coincident with: marsh
paludified forest

On other databases

38 identifiers linking swamp across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

17%

externally sourced

Source last edited October 19, 2026. AIDb refreshes this page daily.

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AIDb. (2026). swamp (Q166735). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/swamp-Q166735