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Arica ( ə-REE-kə; Spanish: [aˈɾika]) is a port city and commune in the Arica Province of northern Chile's Arica y Parinacota Region. It is Chile's northernmost city, being located only 18 km (11 mi) south of the border with Peru. The city is the capital of both the Arica Province and the Arica and Parinacota Region. Arica is located at the bend of South America's western coast known as the Arica Bend or Arica Elbow. It is also where two valleys which dissect the Atacama Desert, Azapa and Lluta, converge. These valleys provide citrus and olives for export.
Arica is an important port for a large inland region of South America. The city serves a free port for Bolivia and manages a substantial part of that country's trade. In addition it is the end station of the Bolivian oil pipeline beginning in Oruro. The city's strategic position is enhanced by being next to the Pan-American Highway, being connected to both Tacna in Peru and La Paz in Bolivia by railroad and being served by an international airport.
Arica was made famous in 1970 by the spiritual master Oscar Ichazo when he held a 10-month training there for 50 North Americans from the Esalen Institute in California. The Arica School, based in the United States of America, has influenced thousands of people all over the world.
Arica has an extremely dry climate, with almost no rainfall. Even so, the frequent maritime winds from the cold waters nearby renders a moderate desert climate. Its mild weather has made Arica known as the "city of the eternal spring" in Chile while its beaches are frequented by Bolivian society. The city was an important port already during Spanish colonial rule. Chile seized the city from Peru in 1880 during the War of the Pacific, being recognized as Chilean by Peru in 1929. A substantial part of African Chileans live in or trace their origins to Arica.
The province's name comes from the Kunza term arisca, meaning 'new bay', or Ariacca, the name of the Inca chief who used to live in what is currently the city.
Archaeological findings indicate that Arica was inhabited by different native groups dating back 10,000 years. These people are the first known culture to mummify their dead, predating the Egyptians by 2,000 years, and their mummies have been discovered as recently as 2004 and buried as shallow as <1 meter beneath the city's surface.
Spaniards settled the land under captain Lucas Martinez de Begazo in 1541, and in 1570, the area was grandly retitled as "La Muy Ilustre y Real Ciudad San Marcos de Arica" (the very illustrious and royal city of San Marcos of Arica). At the time of the Spanish settlement the region around Arica was already multiethnic displaying a mix of local sedentary populations and mitma settlers from the Altiplano. The proportions of these are that the first made up about 66% of the population and the latter 25%. The remaining 9% were fishing-oriented people known as Camanchacos. Many of the sedentary populations are thought to have spoken the Puquina language. In 1540 the encomienda system was established in Arica and its surroundings with conquistador Lucas Martínez de Vegaso obtaining 1,638 encomienda Indians (a third of tributaries distributed). Pedro Pizarro and Pedro de la Fuente followed in numbers receiving each approximately 600 tributaries.
By 1545, Arica was the main export entrepot for Bolivian silver coming down from Potosí, which then possessed the world's largest silver mine. Arica thus held a crucial role as one of the leading ports of the Spanish Empire. These enviable riches made Arica the target for pirates, buccaneers, and privateers, among whom Francis Drake, Thomas Cavendish, Richard Hawkins, Joris van Spilbergen, John Watling, Baltazar de Cordes, Bartholomew Sharp, William Dampier, and John Clipperton all took part in looting the city. From 1540 to 1570 the population in the region of Arica shrank by 36% due to disease, death in mining or emigration to evade the harsh conditions imposed by the Spanish. In 1570 the Francisco de Toledo issued a decree reorganizing indigenous labour and taxation and among other things imposing the mita minera. In November 1604 the city was hit by a destructive earthquake and tsunami, causing it to be rebuilt.
Following the collapse of Spanish rule, in 1821, Arica was part of the recently independent Peruvian state. The Peruvian Constitution of 1823 regards it as a province of the Department of Arequipa. In 1855, Peru inaugurated the Tacna–Arica railway (53 km long), one of the first in Latin America. The rail line still functions today.
The earthquake of August 13, 1868 struck near the city with an estimated magnitude of 8.0 to 9.0. Estimates on the death toll vary greatly, some estimates have the number at 25,000 to 70,000 people. Others estimate that the population of Arica was less than 3,000 people and the death toll was around 300. It triggered a tsunami, measurable across the Pacific in Hawaii, Japan and New Zealand. As Arica lies very close to the subduction zone known as the Peru–Chile Trench where the Nazca Plate dives beneath the South American Plate, the city is subject to megathrust earthquakes.
Chilean forces occupied the region following the War of the Pacific. The Treaty of Ancón in 1883 formally acceded the region to Chilean control. The 1929 Tacna-Arica compromise in the Treaty of Lima subsequently restored Tacna to Peru but Arica remained part of Chile.
In 1958, the Chilean Government established the "Junta de Adelanto de Arica" (Board of Development for Arica), which promulgated many tax incentives for the establishment of industries, such as vehicle assembly plants, a tax-free zone, and a casino, among others. Many car manufacturers opened plants in Arica, such as Citroën, Peugeot, Volvo, Ford and General Motors, which produced the Chevrolet LUV pickup until 2008.
In 1975, together with Chile's new open economy policies, the "Junta de Adelanto de Arica" was abolished.
The Arica and Parinacota Region was created on October 8, 2007, under Law 20.175, promulgated on March 23, 2007, by President Michelle Bachelet in the city of Arica.
In 1984–1985, the Swedish metal company Boliden Mineral AB paid a local mineral extracting company, Promel Ldta., 10 million SEK ($1.2 million, $3.15 million in 2021 dollars) to receive, treat and confine around 20,000 tonnes of smeltery sludge from Rönnskärsverken in Skellefteå, containing among other things high levels of lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury and iron and smaller amounts of gold and silver. To earn additional income, Promel planned to extract various substances from the waste at its processing plant at Sitio F in the outskirts of Arica. The end products were mainly raw arsenic and iron-silver-gold oxides. The first shipment arrived in Arica in August 1984 and the processing of 500 kg test batches in October 1984 gave positive results with oversight from an official from the Chilean Health Authority in Santiago. After the sludge processing had begun at large scale and the third and last shipment of sludge arrived to Promel's plant in Arica in July 1985, contact between Boliden and Promel ceased.
In the late 1980s, Promel ceased all activities at Sitio F for unknown reasons and abandoned the remaining 10,000 tons of the highly toxic smelting sludge out in the open exposed to the elements. The area surrounding the plant was later used by the local authorities to build state-sponsored social housing aimed at low-income families. No physical barrier between the former plant and the residential area existed at the time. Residents of the new neighborhood had no knowledge about the contents of the sludge at the site, which became used as a playground by children.
In the 1990s, many residents around the former plant began to show symptoms of lead and arsenic poisoning. In 1998, the Chilean authorities ordered Promel to move the toxic waste. Promel moved the sludge to a walled area on the other side of a nearby hill and covered the material with a plastic mat. It was supposed to be a temporary storage site, yet the material remains there to this day. Cleanup of the remaining parts of Sitio F finished as late as 2010. Even after the removal of the sludge, the health effects on the local population continue to be devastating. Almost 8,000 residents were tested for toxic substances in 2010. Of the 6600 people that got results back from the Chilean Health Authority, 12.9% showed arsenic in their urine samples. Studies have found very high rates of arsenic related lung cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer and skin cancer in the local population. Other health effects include non-cancerous heart and lung diseases and fertility problems such as low birth weights and spontaneous miscarriages.
In 2013, 796 Arica residents, including human rights defenders, started legal action in Sweden against Boliden. The Court of Appeal for Northern Norrland held that the claims of the victims were time limited, and the Swedish Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Arica has a hot desert climate, abbreviated "BWh" on climate maps. Unlike many other cities with arid climates, Arica seldom sees extreme temperatures throughout the course of the year and it is also relatively overcast. Arica is also known as the driest inhabited place on Earth, at least as measured by rainfall: average annual precipitation is 0.76 mm (0.03 inches), as measured at the airport meteorological station.
As of the 2024 census, the population is 241,653, of which 49.2% are male and 50.8% are female. People under 15 years old make up 19.7% of the population, and people over 65 years old make up 12.7%. 91.1% of the population is urban and 8.9% is rural. Arica is home to 98.8% of the region's population.
The population of Arica is made up of various long-established groups in the region, and other more recent arrivals settled at differing times. Among the long-established groups, the oldest consists of indigenous Amerindians, such as the Aymara, whose presence in the region is of several millennia. These are followed by the second oldest, the local colonial-era groups, which includes local mestizos (of mixed Spanish-Amerindian origin), local criollos (whites of colonial Spanish origin), and local afrodescendants of colonial-era slaves. The third oldest group consists of early post-colonial Chinese Chileans who first arrived as miners and rail workers in the 1890s.
These long-established groups of Ariqueños have been augmented by various later settlers, mostly other criollos and mestizo Chileans from elsewhere around Chile, but also numerous Europeans, who arrived in the 1900s, including more Spaniards arriving from Spain, as well as Italians, Greeks, British, and French. These arrived at different times during the last century.
Some Ariqueños, primarily the indigenous Amerindians, but also the afro-descendants, share cultural affinities to counterpart populations in neighbouring border areas of Peru, and more distantly, Bolivia.
The urban area of Arica has 209,981 inhabitants in an area of 38.03 square kilometres (14.68 sq mi). The growing city of Arica spreads outward into the desert and the Peru-Chile border. The Azapa Valley has developed a year-round agricultural economy due to improvements in irrigation and transportation of its products.
The villages that make up the commune are Villa Frontera and San Miguel de Azapa. Some hamlets are Poconchile, Molinas, Sora, Las Maitas and Caleta Vitor.
The commune of Arica is composed of 19 census districts.
Source: INE 2007 report, "Territorial division of Chile"
As of the 2024 census, immigrants make up 14.7% of the population - 14.4% are from South America, 0.2% from North America, 0.1% from Europe, 0.03% from Asia, 0.004% from Africa, and 0.004% from Oceania.
As a commune, Arica is a third-level administrative division of Chile administered by a municipal council, headed by an alcalde who is directly elected every four years. The 2008–2012 alcalde is Waldo Sankán Martínez (Independent).
Within the electoral divisions of Chile, Arica is represented in the Chamber of Deputies by Mr. Vlado Mirosevic (Partido Liberal) and Mr. Luis Rocaful as part of the 1st electoral district, which includes the entire Arica and Parinacota Region. The commune is represented in the Senate by José Miguel Insulza (PS, 2018–2026) and José Durana (UDI, 2018–2026) as part of the 1st senatorial constituency (Arica and Parinacota Region and Tarapacá Region).
The Morro de Arica is a tall, nearly-vertical rock formation and hill located in the city, situated approximately 139 meters above sea level. It was the last bulwark of defense for the Peruvian troops who garrisoned the city. It was attacked and captured on 7 June 1880 by Chilean troops, as the final effort of their Campaña del Desierto (Desert Campaign) during the War of the Pacific.
Near to the city center is the Azapa Valley, an oasis where vegetables and, famously, Azapa olives are grown. Economically, it is also an important port for Chilean ore. The semi-tropical latitude, combined with the low humidity and the city's beaches, have made Arica a popular tourist destination. It is also a center of Chilean rail networks with Bolivia. For air travel, the region is serviced by Chacalluta International Airport.
Catedral de San Marcos de Arica is a magnificent church designed by Gustave Eiffel was built in the 1870s.
Plaza Colón is the civic heart of the city, the public square is where its residents congregate for celebrations, diversions or simply being a part of the community.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Arica”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.