Claim: Charles Marie de La Condamine was a French geographer.

Charles Marie de La Condamine -LRB- 28 January 1701 -- 13 February 1774 -RRB- was a French explorer , geographer , and mathematician . He spent ten years in present-day Ecuador measuring the length of a degree latitude at the equator and preparing the first map of the Amazon region based on astronomical observations . Furthermore he was a contributor to the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences , des arts et des métiers .