Tacna, officially known as San Pedro de Tacna, is a city in southern

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

and the regional capital of the

Tacna Region Tacna (; Aymara language, Aymara and Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''Taqna'') is the southernmost Regions of Peru, department and Regional Government of Tacna, region in Peru. The Chilean Army occupied the present-day Tacna Department during the W ...

. A very commercially active city, it is located only north of the border with

Arica y Parinacota Region The Arica y Parinacota Region ( ) is one of Chile's 16 first order administrative divisions. It comprises two provinces, Arica Province, Arica and Parinacota Province, Parinacota. It borders Peru's Department of Tacna to the north, Bolivia's La ...

from

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

, inland from the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

and in the valley of the

Caplina River The Caplina River (''Rio Caplina'') is a river in southern Peru. It runs through the city Tacna, after which it gets dry due to filtration, evaporation Evaporation is a type of vaporization that occurs on the Interface (chemistry), sur ...

. It is Peru's tenth most populous city. The city has gained a reputation for its patriotism, with many monuments and streets named after heroes of Peru's struggle for

independence Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of ...

(1821–1824) and the

War of the Pacific The War of the Pacific (), also known by War of the Pacific#Etymology, multiple other names, was a war between Chile and a Treaty of Defensive Alliance (Bolivia–Peru), Bolivian–Peruvian alliance from 1879 to 1884. Fought over Atacama Desert ...

(1879–1883). Residents of Tacna are known in

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

as '.

History

Pre-Columbian era

At the time of the

Spanish conquest The Spanish Empire, sometimes referred to as the Hispanic Monarchy or the Catholic Monarchy, was a colonial empire that existed between 1492 and 1976. In conjunction with the Portuguese Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It ...

, the region around Tacna was already multiethnic, displaying a mix of local sedentary populations and

mitma ''Mitma'' was a policy of forced resettlement employed by the Inca Empire, Incas. It involved the forceful migration of groups of extended families or ethnic groups from their home territory to lands recently conquered by the Incas. The objective ...

settlers from the

Altiplano The Altiplano (Spanish language, Spanish for "high plain"), Collao (Quechuan languages, Quechua and Aymara language, Aymara: Qullaw, meaning "place of the Qulla people, Qulla") or Andean Plateau, in west-central South America, is the most extens ...

. The proportions of these are that the first made up about 66% of the population and the latter 25%. Fishing-oreinted people known as

Camanchacos The Changos, also known as Camanchacos or Camanchangos, are an Indigenous people or group of peoples who inhabited a long stretch of the Pacific coast from southern Peru to north-central Chile, including the coast of the Atacama Desert. Although ...

made up about the remaining 9% of the population. Much of the population practising agriculture is believed to have spoken the

Puquina language Puquina (or Pukina) is an extinct language once spoken by a native ethnic group in the region surrounding Lake Titicaca (Peru and Bolivia) and in the north of Chile. It is often associated with the culture that built Tiwanaku. Remnants of Puqui ...

. In 1540 the

encomienda The ''encomienda'' () was a Spanish Labour (human activity), labour system that rewarded Conquistador, conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. In theory, the conquerors provided the labourers with benefits, including mil ...

system was established in Tacna and its sorroundings with conquistador

Lucas Martínez de Vegaso Lucas or LUCAS may refer to: People * Lucas (surname) * Lucas (given name) Arts and entertainment * Luca Family Singers, or the Lucas, a 19th-century African-American singing group * Lucas, a 1960s Swedish pop group formed by Janne Lucas Perss ...

obtaining 1,638 encomienda indians (a third of tributaries distributed).

Pedro Pizarro Pedro Pizarro (c. 1515 – c. 1602) was a Spanish chronicler and conquistador. He took part in most events of the Spanish conquest of Peru and wrote an extensive chronicle of them under the title ''Relación del descubrimiento y conquista de ...

and Pedro de la Fuente followed in numbers receiving each approximately 600 tributaries.

Colonial era

Francisco Antonio de Zela Francisco Antonio de Zela y Arizaga (July 24, 1768, in Lima – July 18, 1819, in Panama City) is notable for sending forth the first anti-Spanish rebellion in the Peruvian city of Tacna on June 20, 1811, in an attempt to start the independenc ...

, a royal accountant (similar in function to a modern-day income tax auditor), initiated the push for Peruvian Independence from

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

in 1811 in Tacna, leading to a series of commemorative actions for the city, culminating in the 1828 declaration of Tacna as the "Heroic City" (') by President

José de La Mar José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced very differently in each of the two languages: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , ...

Republican era

Tacna was the capital of the short-lived

Peru–Bolivian Confederation The Peru–Bolivian Confederation () was a short-lived state that existed in South America between 1836 and 1839. The country was a loose confederation made up of three states: North Peru and South Peru—states that arose from the division of th ...

(1836–1839). The city was once known for its mining industry; it had significant deposits of

sodium nitrate Sodium nitrate is the chemical compound with the chemical formula, formula . This alkali metal nitrate salt (chemistry), salt is also known as Chile saltpeter (large deposits of which were historically mined in Chile) to distinguish it from ordi ...

and other resources. Its economic prosperity attracted a wave of immigrants from

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. Today, their

Italian Peruvian Italian Peruvians (; ) are Peruvian-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Peru during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Peru. Among European Peruvians, Italians w ...

descendants live in the city and many of them still have Italian surnames. This era of successful commerce and agriculture ended drastically with the start of the

. Hosting a large Peru-Bolivian army under poor sanitary conditions the city lost a substantial part of its population to

infectious disease An infection is the invasion of tissue (biology), tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host (biology), host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmis ...

s before its capture by Chile in May 1880 following a defeat of the allied army in the outskirts of the city by a Chilean force under General

Manuel Baquedano Manuel Jesús Baquedano González (; January 1, 1823 – September 30, 1897) was a Chilean soldier and politician, who served as Commander-in-chief of the Army during the War of the Pacific, and briefly as President of Chile during the civil wa ...

Chilean administration

During the war, Tacna—as well as neighbouring

Arica Arica ( ; ) is a commune and a port city with a population of 222,619 in the Arica Province of northern Chile's Arica y Parinacota Region. It is Chile's northernmost city, being located only south of the border with Peru. The city is the ca ...

—was administered by the

Chilean Army The Chilean Army () is the land arm of the Chilean Armed Forces. This 80,000-person army (9,200 of which are conscripts) is organized into six divisions, an army aviation brigade and a special operations brigade. In recent years, and after sever ...

and incorporated as a commune that served as the

seat A seat is a place to sit. The term may encompass additional features, such as back, armrest, head restraint but may also refer to concentrations of power in a wider sense (i.e " seat (legal entity)"). See disambiguation. Types of seat The ...

of the eponymous department and

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

. In modern Peruvian historiography, this period is known as the . The

Treaty of Ancón The Treaty of Ancón was a peace treaty signed by Chile and Peru on 20 October 1883, in Ancón, near Lima. It was intended to settle the two nations' remaining territorial differences at the conclusion of their involvement in the War of the Paci ...

was signed in 1883 between Peru and Chile, ending the war. Under the terms of the treaty, Chile was to administer the provinces of Tacna and Arica for ten years, taking control of valuable

mineral deposit Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically including metals, concentrated above background levels, and that is economically viable to mine and process. The grade of ore refers to the concentration ...

s, after which a

plebiscite A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a direct vote by the electorate (rather than their representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either binding (resulting in the adoption of a new policy) or adv ...

was to be held to determine the region's sovereignty. But when the ten years had elapsed, the two sides could not agree whether to include a large number of imported Chilean laborers in the vote. Throughout the administration, Chilean groups and authorities led a campaign of Chilenization in an attempt to persuade the local population to abandon their Peruvian past and accept Chilean nationality. However, Peruvian

nationalists Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, Id ...

ensured that the Chilean propaganda failed and the planned plebiscite was never held. The commune was formally created through a decree on 22 December 1891, taking into account the limits assigned by the decrees of 9 November 1885 and 10 May 1886, and was composed of four subdelegations: ''El Callao'', ''San Ramón'', ''El Mercado'' and ''El Alto de Lima''. According to the 1907 census, the population that year was numbered at 10,593 people. During this period, people such as

Jorge Basadre Jorge Alfredo Basadre Grohmann (12 February 1903 – 29 June 1980) was a Peruvian historian known for his extensive publications about the independent history of his country. He served during two different administrations as Minister of Educati ...

and

Salvador Allende Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 1970 until Death of Salvador Allende, his death in 1973 Chilean coup d'état, 1973. As a ...

(as well as

his family ''His Family'' is a novel by Ernest Poole published in 1917 about the life of a New York widower and his three daughters in the 1910s. It received the first Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1918. Plot introduction ''His Family'' tells the story ...

) lived in the city. Starting in 1 February 1928, by virtue of Decree with Force of Law No. 8,583 published that 28 January under the government of

Carlos Ibáñez del Campo General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo (; 3 November 1877 – 28 April 1960) was a Chilean Army officer and political figure. He served as president twice, first between 1927 and 1931, and then from 1952 to 1958, serving for 10 years in office. E ...

, the commune of Tacna was composed of three subdelegations: ''Intendencia'', ''Comercio'' and ''Pocollay''. This decree also ordered the creation of the communes of Palca and Sama, which together with Tacna formed a single municipal group; That is, neither Palca and Sama had their own communal government as in most communes in Chile. In 1929, the Treaty of Lima was signed in which Chile kept Arica, whilst Peru reacquired Tacna and received a $6 million indemnity and other concessions. The commune ceased to exist when the treaty became effective on 28 August, in a ceremony held at the home of the prefect Federico Fernandini, in which an agreement was signed between the interim mayor of the Chilean province of Tacna, Gonzalo Robles, and a delegation of Peru headed by Foreign Minister

Pedro José Rada y Gamio Pedro José Rada y Gamio (15 August 1873 – 25 May 1938) was a Peruvian politician in the early 20th century. He served as the President of the Chamber of Deputies from 1921 to 1922. He was the mayor of Lima Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 ...

. At 4 p.m. that day, the Peruvian municipality of Tacna began its functions.

Present

Today, Tacna is a mostly commercial city with many migrants from the

Puno Region Puno () is a department and region in southeastern Peru. It is the fifth largest department in Peru, after Cuzco, Madre de Dios, Ucayali, and Loreto. It is bordered by Bolivia on the east, the departments of Madre de Dios on the north, Cusc ...

living there. Its economy is based on mercantile activities with the north of Chile (Arica and

Iquique Iquique () is a port List of cities in Chile, city and Communes of Chile, commune in northern Chile, capital of both the Iquique Province and Tarapacá Region. It lies on the Pacific coast, west of the Pampa del Tamarugal, which is part of the At ...

). Since it is part of a

duty-free A duty-free shop or store is a retail outlet whose goods are exempt from the payment of certain local or national taxes and duties, on the requirement that the goods will be sold to travelers who will take them out of the country, who will ...

zone, Tacna has come to rival

Arequipa Arequipa (; Aymara language, Aymara and ), also known by its nicknames of ''Ciudad Blanca'' (Spanish for "White City") and ''León del Sur'' (Spanish for "South's Lion"), is a city in Peru and the capital of the eponymous Arequipa (province), ...

as southern Peru's main business area. The city has one of the largest artifact markets in the world with imports from

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, and traditional Peruvian handicrafts.

Geography

The area is generally desert, with a few fertile spots near the mountains. Except for Caplina, no rivers cross the entire province.

Climate

Tacna has a

desert climate The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk'') is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert ...

(''BWk/BWh'', according to the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

Tourist attractions

Many monuments are located in this city, including the arch of the

Alto de la Alianza The Alto de la Alianza Monumental Complex () is a historical monument and landmark complex in the south of Peru, near the city of Tacna. The monument is located in the site of the Battle of Tacna, a battle that took place on May 26, 1880 between ...

and the

Tacna Parabolic Arch The Monument to the Heroes (), popularly known as the Parabolic Arch (), is a quarried pink stone monument located on the Paseo Cívico de Tacna, built in honor of the heroes of the War of the Pacific, Admiral Miguel Grau and Colonel Francisco Bol ...

. Other monuments include a neo-

renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

Cathedral A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually s ...

, the Courthouse, the

Alameda Bolognesi Alameda Bolognesi, formerly known as Alameda Baquedano during the city's Chilean administration, is the main avenue of the city of Tacna, Peru. It was built over the streambed of Caplina River, which still runs under its path. It was built by Man ...

and the caves of Toquepala, where

archaeologists Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

have found some of the oldest human remains in Peru.

Festivities

The most important festivity in the city is the ''Semana de Tacna'' ("Tacna Week"), which runs from August 25–30. On 28 August, a large

Peruvian flag The Flag of Peru (), often referred to as The Bicolour (), was adopted by the government of Peru in 1825, and modified in 1950. According to the article 49 of the Constitution of Peru, it is a vertical triband (flag), triband with red outer band ...

is shown throughout the city during the ', which celebrates the anniversary of the reincorporation of Tacna into Peruvian sovereignty and is one of the most important patriotic demonstrations in the whole country. This tradition started in 1901, during the Chilean administration of Tacna, by a group of ''tacneños'' who defied the prohibition of showing Peruvian flags imposed by the Chilean authorities. There is an agrarian and industrial fair as part of these celebrations. In September, the festival of the Señor de Locumba is celebrated, which draws thousands of faithful people from all over the world.

Transport

Rail

Tacna was served by a cross-border

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

. The line closed in 2012, but as of June 2014, there were plans to reopen it. It is also the location of the National Railway Museum of Peru.Southern Peru Railroads
/ref>

Air

Tacna is served by the Crnl. FAP. Carlos Ciriani Santa Rosa International Airport, with flights to

and

Lima Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...

Road

Tacna is also served by

Peru Highway 1 Highway 1, most widely known as the Pan-American Highway (), is the most important highway in Peru, forming part of the larger Pan-American Highway. Route Northern Highway This road is the Peruvian portion of the Pan-American Highway. It runs no ...

which heads south to

and north to

Moquegua Moquegua (, founded by the Spanish colonists as Villa de Santa Catalina de Guadalcázar del Valle de Moquegua) is a city in southern Peru, located in the Department of Moquegua, of which it is the capital. It is also capital of Mariscal Nieto Prov ...

Gallery

File:Tacna Plaza de Armas.jpg, Main square in San Martin area File:Tacna plaza de armas.jpg, Arco Parabólico, Pileta and Glorieta de Tacna, located in the Av. San Martín File:Mercadoviejo.jpg, Coctel Mercado Viejo

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Populated places in the Department of Tacna Populated places established in 1572 Capitals of former nations Chile–Peru border crossings Cities in Peru 1572 establishments in the Spanish Empire Regional capital cities in Peru