Amazon trumps the Nile

Saturday June 16th 2007
Filed Under World 

If a group of Brazilian scientists get their way, the answer to “What is the longest river in the world” may no longer be the Nile.  An expedition by scientists are said to have discovered that the source of the Amazon is really in the South of Peru which, if true, gives the Amazon a calculated length of 6,800km (4,250 miles).  The Nile, by comparison is 6,695km in length. 

Guido Gelli, director of science at the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, told the Brazilian network TV Globo that today it could already be considered as a fact that the Amazon was the longest river in the world.

This new measurement is backed by the findings of a separate Pan-Amazon Project, developed by five scientists from the Remote Sensing Division of the Brazilian National Space Research Institute (INPE) who used satellite imagery to compare the lengths of both the Nile and the Amazon rivers.  “We measured the Amazon and the Nile. There are final analyses to be done, but we can affirm that the former is longer than the latter,” study coordinator and geologist, Paulo Martini told Radiobrás, Brazil’s state news agency.



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    Comments

    One Response to “Amazon trumps the Nile”

    1. David A Lergessner on June 25th, 2007 12:37 am

      The margin for error here is exceedingly tight.

      I would be happy if the group which recently measured the Amazon used the same techniques to measure the Nile.

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