IF SOMEONE asked what the longest river in the world is, you’d probably say the Nile in northeast Africa. But scientists have long speculated that the Amazon is in fact longer.
Now a team of researchers are planning an expedition (see Word of the Week) to the South American jungle to measure the length of the Amazon.
Although the Amazon is the largest river in terms of volume of water, the debate around whether it is the longest is fuelled by the fact that no one can agree on where exactly it begins and ends.
A team of explorers want to settle the debate once and for all when they set off in April 2024.
They’ll start in the Peruvian Andes before travelling nearly 7 000km across Colombia and Brazil to the massive river’s mouth where it meets the Atlantic.
The researchers also aim to showcase the
