diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index ab99c14..1a919ed 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -3,8 +3,10 @@ multistrap (2.1.6) unstable; urgency=low
   * [INTL:fr] French manpage translation update (Closes: #584679)
   * Allow check-deps.sh to proceed when detecting errors.
   * Avoid unitialised Priority value.
+  * Call dpkg --print-architecture for determination of host
+    architecture. (Closes: #589713)
 
- -- Neil Williams <codehelp@debian.org>  Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:47:53 +0100
+ -- Neil Williams <codehelp@debian.org>  Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:59:20 +0100
 
 multistrap (2.1.5) unstable; urgency=low
 
diff --git a/multistrap b/multistrap
index 1b67d86..2628c9e 100755
--- a/multistrap
+++ b/multistrap
@@ -118,7 +118,7 @@ if (not defined $dir or not defined $arch)
 
 # Translators: fields are: programname, versionstring, configfile.
 printf (_g("%s %s using %s\n"), $progname, $ourversion, $file);
-$host = `dpkg-architecture -qDEB_BUILD_ARCH`;
+$host = `dpkg --print-architecture`;
 chomp ($host);
 if ((not defined $arch) or ($arch eq ""))
 {