Known only as the river with most water volume, the Amazon river of Peru and Brazil can finally lay claim to the title of longest.

Polish explorer Jacek Palkiewicz has maintained as solid the results of his study and expedition for many years, proving the origin of the Amazon river to be in a remote location in Arequipa, starting at a creek by the name of Apacheta on the Nevado Quehuisha mountain, 5170 metres above sea level.

His work, supported by the Geographic Society of Lima with whom he cooperates, contracts a similar study by National Geographic magazine, which has maintained for decades that the origin is Lake McIntyre, below mount Mismi in the same region.

Now, thanks to photos from satellite Kompsat-2, the true origin can finally be proven.

Palkiewicz explains that the US publication erroneously assumes the lake is the origin of the Amazon and the new photos actually show no connection. In fact, acording to the Pole, there is a huge area of dry land between the lake and the brook it is said to feed.

“The Apacheta spring, which later becomes the River Apurimac, then the Ucayali, then the Amazon, meets all the scientific criteria. National Geographic only takes into account length, which now we see is also incorrect”, Palkiewicz tells Peru’s El Comercio.

The river Amazon’s length is 7062km long, the longest in the world. The river Nile, at a mere 6670km long, is a distance second.

Tags: amazon, amazon river, arequipa, geology, national geographic, nevado mismi, nevado quehuisha, river