Arauco is a

city A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...

and commune () in

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 ...

, located in Arauco Province in the Bío Bío Region. The meaning of Arauco means Chalky Water in Mapudungun. The region was a Moluche aillarehue. The Spanish settlements founded here during the Conquest of Chile were destroyed on numerous occasions by the

Mapuche The Mapuche ( , ) also known as Araucanians are a group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging e ...

during the Arauco War.

History

Old Arauco

In 1552 Pedro de Valdivia the first governor of Chile, founded a fort, named ''San Felipe de Rauco'' or ''de Araucan''. It was east of the location of the modern city of Arauco in the part of the valley immediately on the South or left bank of the Carampangue River at the point where on the opposite bank it receives the riachuelo of Conumo. Valdivia planned it to be the base for a city he planned to found. The Mapuche destroyed the fort in 1554, after killing Valdivia's insane mother-in-law. It was raised again after the battle of Quiapo, by García Hurtado de Mendoza in 1559. Destroyed again in 1563 it was rebuilt again in 1566 by Rodrigo de Quiroga and became a small town, that remained so without growing until being transferred to the current site of the city of Arauco.

Arauco

The population of old Araucan was moved in 1590 by Governor Don Alonso de Sotomayor to the seacoast, four kilometers to southwest of the mouth of the Carampangue River located between its beach on the Bay of Arauco and the hill on the southwestern side of the place called ''cerro de Colocólo''. The lands for the site were ceded by the cacique Colocólo, and it was named ''Villa de San Ildefonso de Arauco''. However, six years later, Martín García Óñez de Loyola transferred it to its present site, a fort raised on the slope of the Cerro Colocólo and gave it the name of ''Ciudad de San Felipe de Araucan''. In the great Mapuche Uprising of 1598, that followed the death of Governor Loyola, it was destroyed by the Mapuche once again. It was recovered by Governor Alonso de Ribera in 1603, it continued to be harassed by the Mapuche until its inhabitants were forced to leave it in another great rising in 1655. Governor Ángel de Peredo recovered it in 1662 and Governor Francisco de Meneses Brito in 1665. Under the government of Don Juan Henríquez de Villalobos its fort was reconstructed in 1673, and served as the defense of the town until it was destroyed almost completely by the

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

of February 20, 1835. It still suffered from the hostilities of the Mapuche in their uprisings of 1723 and

1766 Events January–March * January 1 – Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie") becomes the new House of Stuart, Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain, as King Charles III, and figurehead for Jacobitism. * Januar ...

and during the war of Independence in the assault that they made on it on June 4, 1817, with their royalist allies. Population began to gather around this fort and it became the city of Araucan (later Arauco) on December 7, 1852. Later it became the capital of the department of Araucan and now Commune of Arauco in the Arauco Province.

Demographics

According to the 2002

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

of Population and Housing by the National Statistics Institute (''Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas'' or INE) the commune of Arauco spans an area of had 34,873 inhabitants; of these, 24,269 (69.6%) lived in

urban area An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbani ...

s and 10,604 (30.4%) in

rural area In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry are typically desc ...

s. At that time, there were 17,603 men and 17,270 women. The population grew by 17.6% (5,216 persons) between the 1992 and 2002 censuses.

Administration

As a commune, Arauco is a third-level

administrative division of Chile The administrative division or territorial organization of Chile exemplifies characteristics of a unitary state. State administration is functionally and geographically decentralized, as appropriate for each authority in accordance with the law ...

administered by a

municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, borough cou ...

, headed by an alcalde who is directly elected every four years. The 2008-2012 alcalde is Mauricio Alarcón Guzmán (ILE). Within the

electoral divisions of Chile This article covers the electoral division of Chile, which involves two distinct systems: # Chamber of Deputies of Chile, Chamber of Deputies and Senate of Chile, Senate: Chile is divided into electoral districts and senatorial constituencies for ...

, Arauco is represented in the

Chamber of Deputies The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures. Description Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourb ...

by Manuel Monsalve ( PS) and Iván Norambuena ( UDI) as part of the 46th electoral district, together with Lota, Lebu, Curanilahue, Los Álamos, Cañete, Contulmo and Tirúa. The commune is represented in the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

by Victor Pérez Varela (UDI) and Mariano Ruiz-Esquide Jara ( PDC) as part of the 13th senatorial constituency (Biobío-Coast).

Climate

References

Francisco Solano Asta-Buruaga y Cienfuegos, Diccionario geográfico de la República de Chile, D. Appleton y Compania, Nueva York, 1899
*
Arauco (Ciudad de), pg. 47-49
*
Arauco Viejo, pg. 50

External links

*
Municipality of Arauco
{{Communes in Bío Bío Region Communes of Chile Populated places established in 1552 Geography of Biobío Region Destroyed populated places Populated places in Arauco Province 1552 establishments in the Spanish Empire Colonial fortifications in Chile Coasts of Biobío Region Port cities in Chile