Pica is a

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

and

commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

Tamarugal Province Tamarugal Province ( es, Provincia de Tamarugal) is one of two provinces in the northern Chilean region of Tarapacá. The capital is the city of Pozo Almonte. Name The province is named after Pampa del Tamarugal. Spanish name: * Provincia de Tam ...

Tarapacá Region The Tarapacá Region ( es, Región de Tarapacá, ) is one of Chile's 16 first-order administrative divisions. It comprises two provinces, Iquique and Tamarugal. It borders the Chilean Arica and Parinacota Region to the north, Bolivia's Oruro D ...

. Situated in the inland of the

Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert ( es, Desierto de Atacama) is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1,600 km (990 mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes Mountains. The Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in the ...

on an

oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...

, Pica is famous for its small and unusually acidic

limes Limes may refer to: * the plural form of lime (disambiguation) * the Latin word for ''limit'' which refers to: ** Limes (Roman Empire) (Latin, singular; plural: ) is a modern term used primarily for the Germanic border defence or delimiting ...

known as

Limón de Pica Limón de Pica is an unusually acidic lime from the oasis town of Pica in Atacama Desert. Limóns de Pica have had an appellation of origin since 2010. The environment where the limes are grown has a mild microclimate that does not display the typ ...

. The town has a communal

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...

with a surface temperature of 40 °C, which makes it a popular bath place in the middle of the desert. It has hotels and all basic services. The town lies four kilometers to the northeast of the oasis village of

Matilla Matilla is a Chilean village and oasis in the interior of Atacama Desert. It lies four kilometers southwest of the oasis town of Pica. As of 2017 Matilla had 380 inhabitants and 217 homes. It host underground aqueducts in various states of decay. ...

. Pica has a mild

microclimate A microclimate (or micro-climate) is a local set of atmospheric conditions that differ from those in the surrounding areas, often with a slight difference but sometimes with a substantial one. The term may refer to areas as small as a few squ ...

that does not display the typical high temperature oscillations seen in many of the worlds deserts. The settlement has

pre-Hispanic In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era spans from the original settlement of North and South America in the Upper Paleolithic period through European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. Usually, th ...

origins and served as an important stopover for transit between the coast and the

Altiplano The Altiplano (Spanish for "high plain"), Collao (Quechua and Aymara: Qullaw, meaning "place of the Qulla") or Andean Plateau, in west-central South America, is the most extensive high plateau on Earth outside Tibet. The plateau is located at the ...

during the time of the

Inca Empire The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admin ...

. Bird mummies of pre-Hispanic origin have been found next to Pica. Pica gained prominence over the course of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries when it grew in association with important mining cycles of nearby areas. The first mining cycle that benefited Pica was the

silver mining Silver mining is the extraction of silver from minerals, starting with mining. Because silver is often found in intimate combination with other metals, its extraction requires elaborate technologies. In 2008, ca.25,900 metric tons were consumed ...

Huantajaya Huantajaya or San Agustín de Huantajaya was a silver mining, silver mine in Chile in the Tarapacá Region, Tarapacá area of Atacama Desert east of Iquique. The silver riches of Tarapacá were known to the Spanish since the time of the Spanish c ...

and San Rosa between 1718 and 1790, this was then followed by a cycle of salpeter mining using the

paradas method The paradas method ( es, método de paradas, ''sistema de paradas'') was a process to extract nitrate from caliche by leaching. In this method caliche was boiled in water in large pans called "paradas". It was a firewood and labour-intensive proces ...

between 1830 and 1870. The town became part of Chile following the

War of the Pacific The War of the Pacific ( es, link=no, Guerra del Pacífico), also known as the Saltpeter War ( es, link=no, Guerra del salitre) and by multiple other names, was a war between Chile and a Bolivian–Peruvian alliance from 1879 to 1884. Fought ...

(1879–1883). The Peruvian population of the town and specifically the rich and influential Peruvian families were a major concern for Chilean authorities who wished to Chilenize the area. Pica had once an extensive irrigation system of

puquios Puquios (from Quechua ''pukyu'' meaning source, spring, or water well) are ancient systems of subterranean aqueducts which allow water to be transported over long distances in hot dry climates without loss of much of the water to evapora ...

, whose

shafts ''Shafts'' was an English feminist magazine produced by Margaret Sibthorp from 1892 until 1899. Initially published weekly and priced at one penny, its themes included votes for women, women's education, and radical attitudes towards vivisection, ...

are locally known as ''socavones''. In 1918 geologist

Juan Brüggen Johannes Brüggen Messtorff better known by his hispanized name Juan Brüggen (Lübeck, Germany, April 25, 1887 – March 7, 1953, Santiago de Chile) was a German-Chilean geologist. One of his most famous works is the extensive treaty of ''Funda ...

mentioned the existence of 23 ''socavones'' in the Pica oasis, yet these have since then been abandoned due to economic and social changes. The socavones transported water from the

Pica Aquifer Pica Aquifer ( es, acuífero de Pica) located in Tarapacá Region of northern Chile is one of the most important aquifers of Atacama Desert. The water of the aquifer is tapped by a system of underground aqueducts known as puquios to irrigate the ...

to the oasis. As in many oases one of the biggest challenges for farmers in Pica is the scarcity of water. Most of the farmers in Pica own less than five

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), or 10,000 m2, and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is a ...

s, and while this size hampers commercialization of products farmers have responded by organising themselves in

cooperative A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

s. Six producers, compromising one fifth of the agricultural output of the oasis, are organised in Oasis Pica Coop. This organisation was as of 2019 working to certify products as

organic Organic may refer to: * Organic, of or relating to an organism, a living entity * Organic, of or relating to an anatomical organ Chemistry * Organic matter, matter that has come from a once-living organism, is capable of decay or is the product ...

and enforce the

appellation An appellation is a legally defined and protected geographical indication primarily used to identify where the grapes for a wine were grown, although other types of food often have appellations as well. Restrictions other than geographical boun ...

control for Limón de Pica. Limón de Pica have had an appellation since 2010.

Demographics

According to the 2002

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

of the

National Statistics Institute National Institute of Statistics may refer to: *National Institute of Statistics of Bolivia *National Institute of Statistics of Cambodia *National Institute of Statistics and Census of Costa Rica *National Institute of Statistics and Census of Nica ...

, Pica has an area of and 6,178 inhabitants (4,569 men and 1,609 women). Of these, 4,674 (75.7%) lived in

urban area An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, t ...

s and 1,504 (24.3%) 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 typically are descri ...

s. The population grew by 45.9% (3,666 persons) between the 1992 and 2002 censuses.

Administration

As a commune, Pica 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, rural counci ...

, headed by an

alcalde Alcalde (; ) is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions. An ''alcalde'' was, in the absence of a corregidor, the presiding officer of the Castilian '' cabildo'' (the municipal council) a ...

who is directly elected every four years. Within the

electoral divisions of Chile Chile has two distinct electoral division systems: * To elect members of the Chamber of Deputies and of the Senate, Chile is divided into several electoral divisions, namely electoral districts and senatorial constituencies. * To elect members of ...

, Pica 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 Bourbon R ...

by Marta Isasi ( Ind.) and Hugo Gutiérrez ( PC) as part of the 2nd electoral district, which includes the entire

. 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 ...

José Miguel Insulza José Miguel Insulza Salinas (born June 2, 1943) is a Chilean politician, lawyer, and academic serving as a senator for the Arica y Parinacota Region since 2018. He previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1994 to 1999 and Ministe ...

(PS, 2018–2026) and José Durana (UDI, 2018–2026) as part of the 1st senatorial constituency (

Arica and Parinacota Region The Arica y Parinacota Region ( es, link=no, Región de Arica y Parinacota ) is one of Chile's 16 first order administrative divisions. It comprises two provinces, Arica and Parinacota. It borders Peru's Department of Tacna to the north, Bolivia ...

and

Gallery

File:Street Vendor-- Pica Oasis.jpg, Pica Oasis Street Vendor File:Street Vendor-- Pica. 2.jpg, Street vendor selling locally-grown citrus. File:Plaza_pública_de_Pica.jpg, Pica's main plaza File:Pica_Maison_de_Remigio_Morales_Bermúdez.jpg, Local architecture

References

External links

*
Municipality of Pica
{{Authority control Communes of Chile Oases of Chile Populated places in El Tamarugal Province Localities irrigated by puquios