How long is the Amazon river?
The debate is on: which is the longest river in the world, the Amazon or the Nile?
1 . The Amazon river
The Amazon is 6,800 kilometres long. That makes it the longest river in the world, and the Nile the second longest river with 6,695 kilometres. This finding was discovered during a research expedition coordinated by Peru’s National Institute of Geography.
2 . Where is the source and the mouth of the Amazon river?
The source of the Amazon river is in the Apacheta valley, at the slopes of Mount Quehuisha in the department of Arequipa (Peru), where the Apacheta creek flows. The river mouth is in the Atlantic Ocean.
3 . The Amazon basin
The Amazon drainage basin is the largest on Earth. The river’s flood plain is 19 to 50 kilometres wide, and the total surface area of the basin is 6,879,761 square kilometres; the discharge volume amounts to 20% of the water that runs off Earth’s surface.
This makes it the largest river in the world by discharge volume. It contains more water than the Nile, the Yangtze and the Mississippi rivers together, with a discharge that is about one-fifth of the freshwater in the planet.
