War of the Pacific
The War of the Pacific known as the Saltpeter War and by multiple other names was a war between Chile and a Bolivian-Peruvian alliance. It lasted from 1879 to 1884, was fought over Chilean claims on coastal Bolivian territory in the Atacama Desert; the war ended with victory for Chile, which gained a significant amount of resource-rich territory from Peru and Bolivia. Chile's army took Bolivia's nitrate rich coastal region and Peru was defeated by Chile's navy. Battles were fought in the Pacific Ocean, the Atacama Desert, Peru's deserts, mountainous regions in the Andes. For the first five months the war played out in a naval campaign, as Chile struggled to establish a sea-based resupply corridor for its forces in the world's driest desert. In February 1878, Bolivia imposed a new tax on a Chilean mining company despite Bolivian express warranty in the 1874 Boundary Treaty that it would not increase taxes on Chilean persons or industries for 25 years. Chile protested and solicited to submit it to mediation, but Bolivia refused and considered it a subject of Bolivia's courts.
Chile insisted and informed the Bolivian government that Chile would no longer consider itself bound by the 1874 Boundary Treaty if Bolivia did not suspend enforcing the law. On February 14, 1879 when Bolivian authorities attempted to auction the confiscated property of CSFA, Chilean armed forces occupied the port city of Antofagasta. Peru, bound to Bolivia by their secret treaty of alliance from 1873, tried to mediate, but on 1 March 1879 Bolivia declared war on Chile and called on Peru to activate their alliance, while Chile demanded that Peru declare its neutrality. On April 5, after Peru refused this, Chile declared war on both nations; the following day, Peru responded by acknowledging the casus foederis. Ronald Bruce St. John in The Bolivia–Chile–Peru Dispute in the Atacama Desert states: Even though the 1873 treaty and the imposition of the 10 centavos tax proved to be the casus belli, there were deeper, more fundamental reasons for the outbreak of hostilities in 1879. On the one hand, there was the power and relative stability of Chile compared to the economic deterioration and political discontinuity which characterised both Peru and Bolivia after independence.
On the other, there was the ongoing competition for economic and political hegemony in the region, complicated by a deep antipathy between Peru and Chile. In this milieu, the vagueness of the boundaries between the three states, coupled with the discovery of valuable guano and nitrate deposits in the disputed territories, combined to produce a diplomatic conundrum of insurmountable proportions. Afterwards, Chile's land campaign bested Peruvian armies. Bolivia withdrew after the Battle of Tacna on May 26, 1880. Chilean forces occupied Lima in January 1881. Peruvian army remnants and irregulars waged a guerrilla war. Chile and Peru signed the Treaty of Ancón on October 20, 1883. Bolivia signed a truce with Chile in 1884. Chile acquired the Peruvian territory of Tarapacá, the disputed Bolivian department of Litoral, as well as temporary control over the Peruvian provinces of Tacna and Arica. In 1904, Chile and Bolivia signed the "Treaty of Peace and Friendship" establishing definite boundaries; the 1929 Tacna–Arica compromise gave Arica to Chile and Tacna to Peru.
The conflict is known as the "Saltpeter War", the "Ten Cents War", the "Second Pacific War". It should not to be confused with the pre-Columbian Saltpeter War, in what is now Mexico, nor the "Guano War" as the Chincha Islands War is sometimes named. Wanu is a Quechua word for fertilizer. Potassium nitrate and sodium nitrate are nitrogen-containing compounds collectively referred to as salpeter, salitre, caliche, or nitrate, they have other important uses. Atacama is a Chilean region south of the Atacama Desert, which coincides with the disputed Antofagasta province, known in Bolivia as Litoral; the Atacama border dispute between Bolivia and Chile concerning the sovereignty over the coastal territories between the parallels 23°S and 24°S was just one of several long-running border conflicts in South America as the area gained independence throughout the nineteenth century, since uncertainty characterized the demarcation of frontiers according to the Uti possidetis 1810. The dry climate of the Peruvian and Bolivian coasts had permitted the accumulation and preservation of vast amounts of high-quality guano deposits and sodium nitrate.
In the 1840s, Europeans knew the guano and nitrate's value as fertilizer and saltpeter's role in explosives. The Atacama Desert became economically important. Bolivia and Peru were located in the area of the largest reserves of a resource the world demanded. During the Chincha Islands War, under Queen Isabella II, attempted to exploit an incident involving Spanish citizens in Peru to re-establish Spanish influence over the guano-rich Chincha Islands. Starting from the Chilean silver rush in the 1830s, the Atacama desert was prospected and populated by Chileans. Chilean and foreign enterprises in the region extended their control to the Peruvian saltpeter works. In the Peruvian region of Tarapacá, Peruvian people constituted a minority behind both Chileans and Bolivians. Bolivia and Chile negotiated the "Boundary Treaty of 1866"; the treaty established the 24th parallel south, "from the littoral of the Pacific to the eastern limits of Chile", as their m
Coipasa Lake
Lago Coipasa or Salar de Coipasa is a lake in Atahuallpa Province, Oruro Department, Bolivia. At an elevation of 3657 m, its surface area is 806 km², it is on the western part of Altiplano, 20 km north of Salar de Uyuni and south of the main road linking Oruro and Huara. Coipasa Lake is a tectonic saline lake with a depth of 3.5 metres, surrounded by the Coipasa salt flats, the volcanic cone of Wila Pukarani. Thousands of flamingos have settled on the shores of Lake Coipasa. Chipaya Ouki Media related to Salar de Coipasa at Wikimedia Commons Salar de Coipasa. Archived from the original on 31 May 2014. Www.boliviatravelsite.com/attractions.php?attraction=Coipasa+Lake gsabulletin.gsapubs.org/content/118/5-6/515.abstract
Asia
Asia is Earth's largest and most populous continent, located in the Eastern and Northern Hemispheres. It shares the continental landmass of Eurasia with the continent of Europe and the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with both Europe and Africa. Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its overall large size and population, but dense and large settlements, as well as vast populated regions, its 4.5 billion people constitute 60% of the world's population. In general terms, Asia is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Arctic Ocean; the border of Asia with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. It has moved since its first conception in classical antiquity.
The division of Eurasia into two continents reflects East–West cultural and ethnic differences, some of which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line. The most accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal separating it from Africa. China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 CE. China was a major economic power and attracted many to the east, for many the legendary wealth and prosperity of the ancient culture of India personified Asia, attracting European commerce and colonialism; the accidental discovery of a trans-Atlantic route from Europe to America by Columbus while in search for a route to India demonstrates this deep fascination. The Silk Road became the main east–west trading route in the Asian hinterlands while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, but overall population growth has since fallen. Asia was the birthplace of most of the world's mainstream religions including Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Sikhism, as well as many other religions.
Given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia varies across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, environments, historical ties and government systems, it has a mix of many different climates ranging from the equatorial south via the hot desert in the Middle East, temperate areas in the east and the continental centre to vast subarctic and polar areas in Siberia. The boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, the Suez Canal; this makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia and the remainder of the country in Africa. The border between Asia and Europe was defined by European academics; the Don River became unsatisfactory to northern Europeans when Peter the Great, king of the Tsardom of Russia, defeating rival claims of Sweden and the Ottoman Empire to the eastern lands, armed resistance by the tribes of Siberia, synthesized a new Russian Empire extending to the Ural Mountains and beyond, founded in 1721.
The major geographical theorist of the empire was a former Swedish prisoner-of-war, taken at the Battle of Poltava in 1709 and assigned to Tobolsk, where he associated with Peter's Siberian official, Vasily Tatishchev, was allowed freedom to conduct geographical and anthropological studies in preparation for a future book. In Sweden, five years after Peter's death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Urals as the border of Asia. Tatishchev announced; the latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century; the border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, although it is sometimes placed further north; the border between Asia and the region of Oceania is placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago.
The Maluku Islands in Indonesia are considered to lie on the border of southeast Asia, with New Guinea, to the east of the islands, being wholly part of Oceania. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several vastly different geographic meanings since their inception; the chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the colonial possessions of the various empires there. Lewis and Wigen assert, "The narrowing of'Southeast Asia' to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process." Geographical Asia is a cultural artifact of European conceptions of the world, beginning with the Ancient Greeks, being imposed onto other cultures, an imprecise concept causing endemic contention about what it means. Asia does not correspond to the cultural borders of its various types of constituents. From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system on the grounds that there is no substantial physical separation between
Lauca River
The Lauca River is a binational river. It originates in the Chilean Altiplano of the Arica and Parinacota Region, crosses the Andes and empties into Coipasa Lake in Bolivia; the upper reach of the river lies within the boundaries of Lauca National Park in the Parinacota Province. Lauca River receives waters from a group of lakes known as Quta Qutani through the Desaguadero River. In this area there is a type of marsh known as Parinacota wetlands, in which converge several streams, being the more important the river just mentioned, which has a variable flow rate ranging from 100 to 560 l/s, an average of 260 l/s. From its source in the Parinacota wetlands the river flows west; the spurs of the Cordillera Central form an obstacle impossible to pass through, forcing the river's course southward. In the vicinity of Wallatiri volcano, the Lauca turns again, now eastward crossing from Chile into Bolivia at the latitude of Macaya, at an elevation of 3,892 m asl and with a flow rate about 2,6 m³/s. In Chile the river drains an area of 2,350 km².
In the Bolivian Altiplano, the Lauca collects the waters of the rivers Sajama and Coipasa, raising its flow rate up to 8 m³/s before turning south to empty into Coipasa Lake, close to the salt flat of the same name. During the 1930s, the Chilean government begun to use the hydrical resources of Lauca river for irrigation in the Azapa Valley, generating a complaint from Bolivian government who argued that Chilean authorities were altering the course of an international river. Chile answered that the natural course of the river was not modified, but the works executed were related to the use of waters in the Parinacota wetlands, which not affect the total water flow of the Lauca in its course to Bolivia; the litigation between both countries, started in 1939, caused diplomatic tension until the 1960s. This article draws on the corresponding article in the Spanish-language Wikipedia, accessed March 31, 2007. Niemeyer, Hans. Geografía de Chile — Tomo VIII: Hidrografía
Peru
Peru 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, in the west by the Pacific Ocean. Peru is a megadiverse country with habitats ranging from the arid plains of the Pacific coastal region in the west to the peaks of the Andes mountains vertically extending from the north to the southeast of the country to the tropical Amazon Basin rainforest in the east with the Amazon river. Peruvian territory was home to several ancient cultures. Ranging from the Norte Chico civilization in the 32nd century BC, the oldest civilization in the Americas and one of the five cradles of civilization, to the Inca Empire, the largest state in pre-Columbian America, the territory now including Peru has one of the longest histories of civilization of any country, tracing its heritage back to the 4th millennia BCE; the Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and established a viceroyalty that encompassed most of its South American colonies, with its capital in Lima.
Peru formally proclaimed independence in 1821, following the military campaigns of José de San Martín and Simón Bolívar, the decisive battle of Ayacucho, Peru secured independence in 1824. In the ensuing years, the country enjoyed relative economic and political stability, which ended shortly before the War of the Pacific with Chile. Throughout the 20th century, Peru endured armed territorial disputes, social unrest, internal conflicts, as well as periods of stability and economic upswing. Alberto Fujimori was elected to the presidency in 1990. Fujimori left the presidency in 2000 and was charged with human rights violations and imprisoned until his pardon by President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski in 2017. After the president's regime, Fujimori's followers, called Fujimoristas, have caused political turmoil for any opposing faction in power causing Pedro Pablo Kuczynski to resign in March 2018; the sovereign state of Peru is a representative democratic republic divided into 25 regions. It is classified as an emerging market with a high level of human development and an upper middle income level with a poverty rate around 19 percent.
It is one of the region's most prosperous economies with an average growth rate of 5.9% and it has one of the world's fastest industrial growth rates at an average of 9.6%. Its main economic activities include mining, manufacturing and fishing; the country forms part of The Pacific Pumas, a political and economic grouping of countries along Latin America's Pacific coast that share common trends of positive growth, stable macroeconomic foundations, improved governance and an openness to global integration. Peru ranks high in social freedom. Peru has a population of 32 million, which includes Amerindians, Europeans and Asians; the main spoken language is Spanish, although a significant number of Peruvians speak Quechua or other native languages. This mixture of cultural traditions has resulted in a wide diversity of expressions in fields such as art, cuisine and music; the name of the country may be derived from Birú, the name of a local ruler who lived near the Bay of San Miguel, Panama City, in the early 16th century.
When his possessions were visited by Spanish explorers in 1522, they were the southernmost part of the New World yet known to Europeans. Thus, when Francisco Pizarro explored the regions farther south, they came to be designated Birú or Perú. An alternative history is provided by the contemporary writer Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, son of an Inca princess and a conquistador, he said the name Birú was that of a common Indian happened upon by the crew of a ship on an exploratory mission for governor Pedro Arias de Ávila, went on to relate more instances of misunderstandings due to the lack of a common language. The Spanish Crown gave the name legal status with the 1529 Capitulación de Toledo, which designated the newly encountered Inca Empire as the province of Peru. Under Spanish rule, the country adopted the denomination Viceroyalty of Peru, which became Republic of Peru after independence; the earliest evidences of human presence in Peruvian territory have been dated to 9,000 BC. Andean societies were based on agriculture, terracing.
Organization relied on reciprocity and redistribution because these societies had no notion of market or money. The oldest known complex society in Peru, the Norte Chico civilization, flourished along the coast of the Pacific Ocean between 3,000 and 1,800 BC; these early developments were followed by archaeological cultures that developed around the coastal and Andean regions throughout Peru. The Cupisnique culture which flourished from around 1000 to 200 BC along what is now Peru's Pacific Coast was an example of early pre-Incan culture; the Chavín culture that developed from 1500 to 300 BC was more of a religious than a political phenomenon, with their religious centre in Chavín de Huantar. After the decline of the Chavin culture around the beginning of the 1st century AD, a series of localized and specialized cultures rose and fell
Lauca National Park
Lauca National Park is located in Chile's far north, in the Andean range. It encompasses an area of 1,379 km2 of altiplano and mountains, the latter consisting of enormous volcanoes. Las Vicuñas National Reserve is its neighbour to the south. Both protected areas, along with Salar de Surire Natural Monument, form Lauca Biosphere Reserve; the park borders Sajama National Park in Bolivia. The park is located 145 kilometres east of Arica and 12 kilometres west of Putre, between 18°03' S - 18°27' S and 69°02' W - 69°39' W, 3,200 metres to 6,342 metres msnm. One of the main attractions of the park is the small lacustrine area formed by Chungará and Cotacotani lakes, which lies at the foothills of the Payachata volcanic group. Other majestic volcanoes forming part of the national park are the Acotango. Lauca features include lava fields and volcanic calderas. Within the park is located the town of Parinacota with its colonial church; the headwaters of Lauca River are found within the park and bordering it to the west is Lluta River.
The international Chile Route 11 passes through this protected area. It runs from Chile Route 5 in the vicinity of Arica to Tambo Quemado Pass and provides the main access to the park; the park lies within the Central Andean dry puna ecoregion. Several species of animals and plants can be found in the park. Mammals in the area include vicuñas, alpacas, tarucas and vizcachas. There are over 140 bird species; those include puna ibis, Andean goose, giant coot, puna tinamou, silvery grebe, crested duck, puna teal, Andean condor and Chilean flamingo. Over 400 species of vascular plants grow in Lauca National Park; the park's vegetation is adapted to the harsh puna environment, as are the bofedales and Andean steppes. Parque Nacional Lauca World Database on Protected Areas entry WCMC Site Sheet
Administrative division
An administrative division, entity, area or region referred to as a subnational entity, constituent unit, or country subdivision, is a portion of a country or other region delineated for the purpose of administration. Administrative divisions are granted a certain degree of autonomy and are required to manage themselves through their own local governments. Countries are divided up into these smaller units to make managing their land and the affairs of their people easier. A country may be divided into provinces, which, in turn, may be divided in whole or in part into municipalities. Administrative divisions are conceptually separate from dependent territories, with the former being an integral part of the state and the other being only under some lesser form of control. However, the term "administrative division" can include dependent territories as well as accepted administrative divisions. For clarity and convenience the standard neutral reference for the largest administrative subdivision of a country is called the "first-level administrative division" or "first administrative level".
Next smaller is called "second-level administrative division" or "second administrative level". In many of the following terms originating from British cultural influence, areas of low mean population density might bear a title of an entity one would expect to be either larger or smaller. There is no fixed rule, for "all politics is local" as is well demonstrated by their relative lack of systemic order. In the realm of self-government, any of these can and does occur along a stretch of road—which for the most part is passing through rural unsettled countryside. Since the terms are administrative political subdivisions of the local regional government their exact relationship and definitions are subject to home rule considerations, tradition, as well as state statute law and local governmental definition and control. In British cultural legacy, some territorial entities began with expansive counties which encompass an appreciably large area, but were divided over time into a number of smaller entities.
Within those entities are the large and small cities or towns, which may or may not be the county seat. Some of the world's larger cities culturally, if not span several counties, those crossing state or provincial boundaries have much in common culturally as well, but are incorporated within the same municipal government. Many sister cities share a water boundary, which quite serves as a border of both cities and counties. For example and Boston, Massachusetts appear to the casual traveler as one large city, while locally they each are quite culturally different and occupy different counties. General terms for these incorporated places include "municipality," "settlement," "locality," and "populated place." Borough, burgh or "boro" City Shire Town Township Village Tribe Indian reservation Indian reserve Band Rancheria Due to variations in their use worldwide, consistency in the translation of terms from non-English to English is sometimes difficult to maintain. Sovereign state, a national or supra-national division.
Country, a national or sub-national division. Empire, a supra-national division. GADM, a high-resolution database of country administrative areas. ISO 3166-2 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions — Part 2. List of administrative division name changes List of etymologies of country subdivision names List of administrative divisions by country United Nations' Second Administrative Level Boundaries dataset Statoids, an international convention with standardized two-letter-based multi-level summaries of administrative divisions worldwide
Chile
