River · Peru
Marañón
The Marañón is one of the main headwaters of the Amazon. It rises high in the Andes of Peru and, after about 1 737 km, joins the Ucayali River to form the mighty Amazon.
Picture credit: Heiner Amado Cadillo (CC BY-SA 3.0) · JYB Devot (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Marañón?
The river starts here: Andes above Lake Lauricocha, central Peru.
It ends in the Joins the Ucayali near Nauta to form the Amazon.
Countries on the river: Peru.
The story behind it
The Marañón starts in the snow-capped Andes above Lake Lauricocha, only about 160 kilometres from the Pacific Ocean. But instead of flowing to the nearby Pacific, it heads north-west across windy high plains and later turns east into the rainforest, on its way to the Atlantic. It has carved deep canyons, with walls up to 3 000 metres high on both sides, and rafters paddle through a wild stretch 552 kilometres long. Later the river squeezes through the Pongo de Manseriche, a gorge about 5 kilometres long and in places only 30 metres wide, where the water can race at 20 km/h. After that it winds through hot rainforest. Near its end it flows along the Pacaya-Samiria reserve, home to pink river dolphins and manatees. In 2024 a court in Peru decided that the river itself has rights, such as the right to be free from pollution.
Questions children ask
How long is the Marañón?
The Marañón is about 1 737 km long. Some sources give a shorter length of about 1 415 km, because the river can be measured in different ways.
Where does the Marañón meet the Ucayali?
What is the Pongo de Manseriche?
It is a narrow gorge where the Marañón rushes between rock walls about 600 metres high. In the past, travellers feared its whirlpools and rocks.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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