Alto Hospicio

Alto Hospicio is a Chilean municipality and commune located next to Iquique, in the Iquique Province, I Region. It is a fast-growing popular area in the heights of Iquique and has a population of 94,254 according to the preliminary result of the 2012 census. It is the second largest commune of the Greater Iquique urbanization with a total population of 275,000 in 2012. History The first inhabitants of Alto Hospicio were the Chango indigenous group, that arrived from the coast. They climbed 550 meters from the cove of Ique Ique during the so-called Festival of the Mule (Bajo Molle), and stopped to rest on the pampa. During reign of Tupac Inca Yupanqui (1380 - 1410 CE), the exploitation of the silver deposits of Huantajaya, located about northeast of the site of Alto Hospicio Central Prison, began. Exploitation of silver continued until the end of the eighteenth century when Basilio de la Fuente, a prominent resident of the town of San Lorenzo de Tarapacá, made a fortune with the mineral and funded major irrigation works. After the War of the Pacific, Alto Hospicio was little more than a desolate train station (specifically the area of Alto Molle), where no more than 100 people lived. By the 1950s, groups of Aymara farmers settled in the area, bringing agricultural products from the inland altiplano. They constructed modest plots for small-scale horticulture and agriculture (both crops and livestock).