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Antofagasta is a port city in northern Chile, about 1,100 kilometres north of Santiago, and the capital of the Antofagasta Region. With 401,096 people in the 2024 census, it is the fifth-largest city in Chile, set on a narrow coastal plain between the Pacific Ocean and the Atacama Desert.
Once claimed by Bolivia, the city was taken by Chile on 14 February 1879, an event that started the War of the Pacific, and Bolivia recognised Chilean rule in the treaty of 1904. Silver and nitrate made the port rich in the 19th century, and today it is the main service hub for one of the great copper mining areas of Chile.
The historic quarter keeps the old pier, the former customs house and the railway station of the line to Bolivia. Beyond the city lie the sea arch of La Portada, the Mano del Desierto sculpture and Paranal Observatory, while natural beaches stretch north of the city towards La Portada.
Plaza Colón is the main square of Antofagasta, a few blocks from the Pacific shore, and the place where Chilean troops landed on 14 February 1879. Its monuments were gifts from foreign communities for the centenary of Chile, and four fountains now mark the north, south, east and west sides.
The Clock Tower of Antofagasta stands in Plaza Colón and was a gift of the British community, unveiled on 17 September 1911 and declared a National Historic Monument in 1986. It is often called a replica of Big Ben, although the only real likeness is in the sound of its chimes.
Antofagasta Cathedral faces Plaza Colón and is dedicated to Saint Joseph. Earlier wooden churches on the site burned in 1880 and 1906, and the first stone of the present neo-Gothic building was laid in 1907. Finished on 17 September 1917, it is admired for its stained glass and its altar.
The Barrio Histórico of Antofagasta is the old coastal quarter between Simón Bolívar Street and Balmaceda Avenue, protected as a heritage zone. Most of its buildings are national monuments, among them the former customs house, the old maritime office and the station of the railway to Bolivia.
The Historic Pier of Antofagasta, begun in 1872 as the nitrate pier of the Melbourne Clark company, is part of the Barrio Histórico. Declared a National Historic Monument in 1978, it recalls the years when nitrate from the desert was shipped out through the port.
The Antofagasta Museum is a history and archaeology museum in the former customs house, a building made in Valparaíso in 1867, first set up in Mejillones and moved to Antofagasta in 1888. It served as the customs house until 1966 and has been a National Historic Monument since 1972.
The Huanchaca Ruins are the thick walls of reddish andesite left from a silver smelter opened in 1892 by the Huanchaca Company of Bolivia. It refined ore from the mines of Pulacayo and employed over 1,200 workers before closing in 1902, and it became a National Historic Monument in 1974.
The Museum of the Atacama Desert stands in the Huanchaca Cultural Park, laid out beside the old silver works together with a small amphitheatre. It was designed by the architects Ramón Coz, Marco Polidura, Eugenia Soto and Iñaki Volante, and the Huanchaca Ruins Foundation runs the park.
La Portada is a natural sea arch 18 kilometres north of Antofagasta and one of the fifteen natural monuments of Chile. The arch is 43 metres high and 70 metres long, carved by the sea from black andesite and fossil-rich sandstone, and the protected area has hiking trails and a small museum.
The Mano del Desierto is an 11-metre sculpture of a hand rising from the Atacama Desert, about 60 kilometres south of Antofagasta beside the Pan-American Highway. Made by Chilean sculptor Mario Irarrázabal of iron and concrete, it was unveiled on 28 March 1992 and is a favourite roadside stop.
Paranal Observatory sits on Cerro Paranal at 2,635 metres in the Atacama Desert, 120 kilometres south of Antofagasta. Run by the European Southern Observatory, it is the largest optical-infrared observatory in the south and home to the Very Large Telescope, made up of four 8.2-metre telescopes.
Morro Moreno National Park, created on 15 April 2010, protects a coastal massif on the Mejillones peninsula facing Antofagasta. It is one of the fog oases of Chile, with about 90 plant species, 57 of them endemic to the country, around 200 animal species and colonies of sea lions.
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Log in to add photosPhoto: Municipalidad Antofagasta from Antofagasta, Chile, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
Photo: Abel Maestro Garcia from Asunción, España, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
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