San Juan de Marcona is the

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

of the

Marcona District Marcona District is one of five districts of the province Nazca in Peru. The district capital is San Juan de Marcona a port on the Pacific coast. Marcona Mine The major industry in the Marcona District is the Marcona Mine, an open-pit iron mine. ...

Nazca Province The Nazca Province ( es, Provincia de Nazca) is one of five provinces of the Ica Region of Peru. The capital of the province is the city of Nazca. Political division The Nasca Province is divided into five districts ( es, distritos, singular: ), ...

Ica Region Ica (; qu, Ika) is a department and region of Peru. It borders the Pacific Ocean on the west; the Lima Region on the north; the Huancavelica and Ayacucho regions on the east; and the Arequipa Region on the south. Its capital is the city of Ic ...

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal , national_motto = "Fi ...

. It is a mining, commercial, port, and fishing town, with a population of approximately 20,000 inhabitants. Known as the iron capital and cradle of the

Humboldt Penguin The Humboldt penguin (''Spheniscus humboldti'') is a medium-sized penguin. It resides in South America, its range mainly contains most of coastal Peru. Its nearest relatives are the African penguin, the Magellanic penguin and the Galápagos peng ...

on the Peruvian coast.

History

Marcona began to become relevant after the mid-nineteen hundreds (1952) when iron was first excavated from the mineral deposits and construction of the San Juan pier by the United States mining company Marcona Mining Company was completed. However, it is important to mention that archaeological remains in the areas of San Nicolás and San Fernando, have been found which suggests the presence of the ancient Peruvians by these desert areas. There also occurred numerous marine accidents in Marcona, starting with the wreck of the BAP Rimac (1855). More than five hundred people perished while only about 20 managed to survive, including the Peruvian writer

Ricardo Palma Manuel Ricardo Palma Soriano (February 7, 1833 – October 6, 1919) was a Peruvian author, scholar, librarian and politician. His magnum opus is the ''Tradiciones peruanas''. Biography According to the official account, Manuel Ricardo Pa ...

. Thirty years later a brigantine "Italia" was lost in that area at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1870, the wise Italian

Antonio Raimondi Antonio Raimondi (September 19, 1826 – October 26, 1890) was a prominent Italian-born Peruvian geographer and scientist. Born in Milan, Raimondi emigrated to Peru, arriving on July 28, 1850, at the port of Callao. In 1851 he became a prof ...

published the existence of an iron deposit in the plains of Marcona. Years later, in 1915, the first explorations of the zone were carried out under the guidance of a local Justo Pastor. He guided the group of engineers toward the plains where the iron was supposed to exist. In 1925 the government president

Augusto B. Leguía Augusto Bernardino Leguía y Salcedo (February 19, 1863 – February 6, 1932) was a Peruvian politician who served as President of Peru from 1908 to 1912 and from 1919 to 1930, the latter term known as ''El Oncenio de Leguía'' (Leguía's E ...

declared the Marcona National Reserve in order to allow future exploitation. During the first decades of the 20th century various fishermen from Pisco and

Callao Callao () is a Peruvian seaside city and Regions of Peru, region on the Pacific Ocean in the Lima metropolitan area. Callao is Peru's chief seaport and home to its main airport, Jorge Chávez International Airport. Callao municipality consists o ...

arrived in Marcona attracted by the abundance of fish and seafood that was found in the San Nicolás and San Juan bays. These men gave rise to the small fishing coves that exist today. In 1943 the Peruvian state created the Corporación Peruana del Santa in order to exploit the carbon and iron reserves. This established an iron and steel works in

Chimbote Chimbote ; qu, Chimputi) is the largest city in the Ancash Region of Peru, and the capital of both Santa Province and Chimbote District. The city is located on the coast in Ferrol Bay, 130 km south of Trujillo and north of Lima on the No ...

. Subsequently, already having proved the huge reserves of iron in Marcona, a group of American companies (including from Utah) formed the North American mining Marcona Mining Company, giving rise to the formation of the small mining camp around the port of San Juan.

Pacific Ocean terminal of the Interoceanic Highway

Marcona is the northernmost of the 3 ports that comprise the Peruvian termini of the

Interoceanic Highway The Interoceanic Highway or Trans-oceanic highway is an international, transcontinental highway in Peru and Brazil to connect the two countries. The east–west passageway spans 2600 kilometers. From Peru's Pacific Ocean coastline, it continues ...

which is being constructed to link the state of

Acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

, in the

Amazon Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivi ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, across the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

to the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. The town is also served by the

San Juan de Marcona Airport San Juan de Marcona Airport is an airport serving city of San Juan de Marcona, the capital of the Ica Region of Peru, and the Marcona Naval Base. The runway is in the desert northeast of the town, and has an additional of overrun on its south ...

Marcona Mine

The major industry in the Marcona District is the

Marcona Mine Marcona may refer to: * Marcona District, Nazca Province, Peru ** San Juan de Marcona, capital of Marcona District ** Marcona Mine, an open-pit iron mine in Marcona District * Marcona, an almond The almond (''Prunus amygdalus'', syn. ''Prun ...

and

open-pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock (geology), rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a Borrow pit, b ...

iron mine acquired in 1992 by

Shougang Corporation Shougang Group Co., Ltd., formerly Shougang Corporation is a Chinese state-owned steel company. Based in Beijing, its the Shijingshan district operations were moved out of the city prior to the Olympics due to concerns over pollution. Its subs ...

a state owned Chinese corporation which does business locally as Shougang Hiero Peru.Info portal at InfoMine.Com
/ref>

Notes

{{Coord, 15, 21, 55, S, 75, 9, 45, W, display=title Mining in Peru Populated places in Peru