Iquitos

Iquitos is the capital of Peru's Loreto Region and Maynas Province, the largest city in the Peruvian Amazon east of the Andes, at an elevation of about 104 meters where the Amazon, Nanay, and Itaya rivers meet. The settlement was founded around 1624, with Jesuit missionaries establishing a mission there called San Pablo de Napeanos around 1757, and it was formally incorporated as a city in 1866. A 2023 estimate placed the population at about 491,000, with a metropolitan area of around 510,000 across four districts. Iquitos is considered the largest city in the world with no road access from the mainland, reachable only by river and air, and it prospered dramatically during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century rubber boom.