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Calama | |
|---|---|
      From left to right:Norte Grande,Historical town of Ayquina,Codelco corporate building, Church ofSan Francisco de Chiu Chiu,El Tatio andChuquicamata | |
  Calama Location in Chile | |
| Coordinates (city):22°28′S68°56′W / 22.467°S 68.933°W /-22.467; -68.933 | |
| Country |  Chile |
| Region |  Antofagasta |
| Province | El Loa |
| Government | |
| • Type | Municipality |
| • Alcalde | Daniel Agusto Pérez |
| Area | |
• Total | 15,596.9 km2 (6,022.0 sq mi) |
| Elevation | 2,260 m (7,410 ft) |
| Population (2012)[2] | |
• Total | 147,886 |
| • Density | 9.48176/km2 (24.5576/sq mi) |
| • Urban | 136,600 |
| • Rural | 1,802 |
| Demonym | Calamenian |
| Sex | |
| • Male | 70,832 |
| • Female | 67,570 |
| Time zone | UTC−4 (CLT) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC−3 (CLST) |
| Postal code | 1399001 |
| Climate | BWk |
| Website | Official website(in Spanish) |
Calama is acity andcommune in theAtacama Desert in northernChile. It is the capital ofEl Loa Province, part of theAntofagasta Region. Calama is one of the driest cities in the world with average annual precipitation of just 5 mm (0.20 in). TheRiver Loa, Chile's longest, flows through the city. Calama has a population of 147,886 (2012census).
The commune also encompasses theQuechua communities of Estación San Pedro,Toconce and Cupo; and theLickan-antay communities of Taira, Conchi Viejo,Lasana,San Francisco de Chiu Chiu,Aiquina-Turi, andCaspana.
In 2003 the nearby town of Chuquicamata, once the largest open-pit copper mine in the world, was dismantled citing environmental reasons and encroachment from the mine's expansion. Residents of Chuquicamata then moved to Calama, away from company-owned residences, to find housing on their own.
There are a variety of hypotheses about the origin of the name "Calama," but the two main accounts suggest that it comes from theKunza language, spoken in the past by theLickan-antay, an ethnic group that resides in theEl Loa Province.
Hector Pumarino Soto suggests that "Calama" stems from the Kunza word "Ckara-ama," which means "town in the middle of the water".[citation needed] Until the middle of the 20th century, the urban site of Calama and the surrounding oasis were flanked by theRiver Loa on two sides, and the fertile plain and swamps on the other sides, giving the location the appearance of an island in the middle of the desert surrounded completely by water.
Emilio Vaïsse, meanwhile, says that Calama comes from the Kunza word "Ckolama," which means "place wherepartridges abound".[4] This is supposed testimony to the abundance of such a bird, living over everything in the middle of the western swamp sector.[citation needed]
The exact evidence related to the history of Calama does exist, includingpetroglyphs and the caves of Yalquincha (NE of the city), the chullpas of Topáter (pre-Columbian cemeteries to the east of the city), the Copper Mummy, and other remains inChuquicamata.
At the intersection of theCamino del Inca (the longitudinal one) and the routes that crossed the coast of the Altiplano, Calama became the main shelter of the Despoblado of Atacama. Their extensive lands for growingcorn andalfalfa give testimony of the high capacity to supply food to the troops of Chasquis and to give tribute to theInca. In fact, whenDiego de Almagro, returning fromCusco, passed by the Calama shelter, the natives gave him copper horseshoes, which were made using a mysterious Incan technique used by towns conquered by the Incas. The science of such a technique still has yet to be explained, but the presence of such horseshoes further suggests strong Incan influence in Prehispanic times.
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Spanish colonization obviously caused some changes; however, the hostile climate impeded establishment of greater control. These changes influenced the control of trade routes that crossed the desert and communication to the port of Cobija with the deposits of Potosísilver and the cattle farms of Salta and Tucumán. In this sense, Calama continued as a main point of provision for commercial routes. In the 18th century, with theBourbon Reforms.Calama was included in maps of theCaptaincy General of Chile in the 18th century, depending from the city ofCopiapó.[5]
AfterBolivia's Declaration of Independence (6 August 1825), and with gradual changes in the administration of the territory, Calama remained constituted under the Departamento de Litoral (1829), subdivided in the Provincia de Lamar y la Provincia de Atacama (Cobija being the departmental capital). Calama was an important town in theAtacama Province, through which traveled the weekly mail between Cobija and Salta-Potosí, since 1832. In 1840, the provincial capital transferred from Chiuchiu to Calama, increasing the communication boom.
Theborder conflicts between Chile and Bolivia did not reach either Calama or the Atacama Province. The greater dispute concentrated in the central prairie and in the coast, where they began to discover rich silver deposits,saltpeter, andguano. The ambiguity that led to the frontier conflicts was the possession of the central plain and the Atacama coast. The environment was made tense when Chilean troops, under the command ofcolonel Emilio Sotomayor Baeza, invaded the port ofAntofagasta on the morning of February 14, 1879. Later, Bolivia declared war on Chile on March 1.
Since that day, the changes in the administration have been very deep. It being part of the administrative center of 2° order in Bolivia, returned as one of 4° order under the Chilean administration (subdelegation). In 1888, under the government ofJosé Manuel Balmaceda, Calama returned as an administrative center of 3° order, inaugurated as the municipality on 13 October. Prior to that, in 1886, Calama was chosen for a railway station of theAntofagasta-Bolivia Railway, which further expedited shipments through Calama.
Calama was devastated by a 1955 earthquake its reconstruction went fast and tripled its urban area.[6] Calama grew further when the town of Chicamata next to mine of the same name was dismantled and replaced by housing in Calama in the 2003–2007 period.[6]
Calama has two distinct entities: thedesert and theAndes Mountain Range. Between 2,000 and 3,000 m (6,562 and 9,843 ft), thedesert climate (BWk) is characterized by annualprecipitation that does not surpass 35 millimetres (1.4 in). The average temperature is 11.2 °C (52.2 °F) throughout the year with drastic changes between average daily highs of over 20 °C (68 °F) and average daily lows below 0 °C (32 °F) in winter and record highs of over 30 °C (86 °F) in summer. Light easterly winds are common in the mornings with strong westerly winds in the afternoon.[7]
| Climate data for Calama (1991–2020, extremes 1966–present) | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
| Record high °C (°F) | 31.2 (88.2) | 30.4 (86.7) | 29.8 (85.6) | 29.6 (85.3) | 28.8 (83.8) | 30.6 (87.1) | 30.6 (87.1) | 30.3 (86.5) | 29.8 (85.6) | 30.4 (86.7) | 30.0 (86.0) | 30.3 (86.5) | 31.2 (88.2) |
| Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 24.8 (76.6) | 24.7 (76.5) | 24.3 (75.7) | 23.6 (74.5) | 22.3 (72.1) | 21.4 (70.5) | 21.1 (70.0) | 22.4 (72.3) | 23.4 (74.1) | 24.3 (75.7) | 24.8 (76.6) | 25.0 (77.0) | 23.5 (74.3) |
| Daily mean °C (°F) | 15.8 (60.4) | 15.9 (60.6) | 15.1 (59.2) | 13.6 (56.5) | 11.9 (53.4) | 10.9 (51.6) | 10.3 (50.5) | 11.4 (52.5) | 12.3 (54.1) | 13.3 (55.9) | 14.0 (57.2) | 15.0 (59.0) | 13.3 (55.9) |
| Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 6.8 (44.2) | 7.1 (44.8) | 6.0 (42.8) | 3.7 (38.7) | 1.6 (34.9) | 0.3 (32.5) | −0.4 (31.3) | 0.4 (32.7) | 1.2 (34.2) | 2.3 (36.1) | 3.2 (37.8) | 4.9 (40.8) | 3.1 (37.6) |
| Record low °C (°F) | −3.0 (26.6) | −4.0 (24.8) | −3.0 (26.6) | −9.5 (14.9) | −7.6 (18.3) | −9.1 (15.6) | −9.6 (14.7) | −12.5 (9.5) | −7.0 (19.4) | −7.5 (18.5) | −6.0 (21.2) | −2.2 (28.0) | −12.5 (9.5) |
| Averageprecipitation mm (inches) | 0.4 (0.02) | 1.4 (0.06) | 0.8 (0.03) | 0.2 (0.01) | 1.3 (0.05) | 0.6 (0.02) | 1.0 (0.04) | 0.8 (0.03) | 0.1 (0.00) | 0.0 (0.0) | 0.0 (0.0) | 0.0 (0.0) | 6.6 (0.26) |
| Average precipitation days(≥ 1.0 mm) | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.5 |
| Averagerelative humidity (%) | 42 | 47 | 47 | 39 | 34 | 34 | 33 | 31 | 32 | 32 | 31 | 36 | 37 |
| Mean monthlysunshine hours | 353.4 | 305.1 | 319.3 | 312.0 | 306.9 | 297.0 | 310.0 | 316.2 | 321.0 | 356.5 | 363.0 | 365.8 | 3,926.2 |
| Mean dailysunshine hours | 11.4 | 10.8 | 10.3 | 10.4 | 9.9 | 9.9 | 10.0 | 10.2 | 10.7 | 11.5 | 12.1 | 11.8 | 10.8 |
| Source 1: Dirección Meteorológica de Chile[8][9] | |||||||||||||
| Source 2:NOAA (precipitation days 1991–2020),[10] Universidad de Chile (sunshine hours)[11] | |||||||||||||
The western boundary of the town of Calama is marked by the peaks of the foothills, which occurs north of Calama in the foothills of the Loa River, which has many names, from north to south: Sierra Moreno, Cerros Chuquicamata Cerros de Montecristo. The Cerro Poquis (4,589 m), is the maximum altitude, north ofChuquicamata. South of it begin the foothills of the Cordillera de Domeyko, which in turn serve to chart the southern boundary of the district, with the names of Sierra de Limón Verde and Cordon Barros Arana. The passage of Loa river from east to west leaves a plain, in which the city of Calama and the oasis is located.
According to the 2002census of theNational Statistics Institute, Calama has an area of 15,596.9 km (9,691 mi) and has 138,402 inhabitants (70,832 men and 67,570 women). Of these, 136,600 (98.7%) lived inurban areas and 1,802 (1.3%) inrural areas. The population grew by 3.6% (16,595 persons) between the 1992 and 2002 censuses.[2]
As acommune, Calama is a third-leveladministrative division of Chile administered by amunicipal council, headed by analcalde who is directly elected every four years. The 2008-2012 alcalde is Esteban Velásquez Núñez.
Within theelectoral divisions of Chile, Calama is represented in theChamber of Deputies by Marcos Espinosa (PRSD) and Felipe Ward (UDI) as part of the 3rd electoral district, (together withTocopilla,María Elena,Ollagüe andSan Pedro de Atacama). The commune is represented in theSenate by Carlos Cantero Ojeda (Ind.) and José Antonio Gómez Urrutia (PRSD) as part of the 2nd senatorial constituency (Antofagasta Region).
Calama is served by theEl Loa Airport.
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