Editing Marañón River (section)

== Source of the Amazon ==
The Marañón River was considered the [[source of the Amazon River]] starting with the 1707 map published by Padre [[Samuel Fritz]],<ref name=":0">{{cite book | url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015008906953;view=1up;seq=74 | title=Journal of the travels and labours of Father Samuel Fritz in ... Fritz, Samuel, 1654-1724. | author=Samuel Fritz, George Edmundson | series=Works issued by the Hakluyt Society,2d ser., no. 51 | year=1922 | location=London, Printed for the Hakluyt Society}}</ref>{{rp|58}} who indicated the great river "has its source on the southern shore of a lake that is called [[Lake Lauricocha|Lauriocha]], near [[Huánuco]]." Fritz believed that the Marañón contributed the most water of all the Amazon's tributaries, making it the most important headstream.<ref>Loureiro Dias, Camila (July 2012), "Jesuit Maps and Political Discourse: The Amazon River of Father Samuel Fritz", ''The Americas'', Vol 69, No. 9, p. 2014. Downloaded from [[Project MUSE]].</ref><ref>Dasgupta, Shreya (2016), "Why the Source of the Amazon river remains a Mystery," BBC, [http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160516-why-it-is-hard-to-find-the-source-of-rivers-like-the-amazon], accessed 6 Nov 2018</ref> 

[[File:Maranonrivermap.png|thumb|left|Location of the Marañón within the Amazon Basin]]

For most of the 18th–19th centuries and into the 20th century, the Marañón River was generally considered the source of the Amazon. Later explorations have proposed two headwaters rivers of the Marañón in the high [[Andes]] as sources of the Amazon: the [[Lauricocha River|Lauricocha]] and [[Nupe River]]s. The Lauricocha and Nupe unite near the village of [[Rondos District|Rondos]] to form from their confluence downstream the river that is called the Marañón.<ref name="Britannica">{{cite EB1911|wstitle= Amazon |volume= 01 | pages = 783&ndash;790 |last1= Church |first1= George Earl }}</ref>

Although the [[Apurimac River|Apurimac]] and [[Mantaro River|Mantaro]] rivers also have claims to being the source of the Amazon, the Marañón River continues to claim the title of the "mainstem source" or "hydrological source" of the Amazon due to its contribution of the highest annual discharge rates.<ref name = "Dias">{{Cite web |url=http://redebrasilis.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Camila-L.-Dias-Jesuit-Maps-and-Political-Discourse-muse.pdf |title=Camila Loureiro Dias, "Maps and Political Discourse: The Amazon River of Father Samuel Fritz," ''The Americas,'' Volume 69, Number 1, July 2012, pp. 95–116. |access-date=15 September 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181001180423/http://redebrasilis.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Camila-L.-Dias-Jesuit-Maps-and-Political-Discourse-muse.pdf |archive-date=1 October 2018 |url-status=live }}</ref>