List_of_Saltpeter_works_in_Tarapacá_and_Antofagasta

List of saltpeter works in Tarapacá and Antofagasta

List of saltpeter works in Tarapacá and Antofagasta

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The use of Nitratine or Chilean Saltpeter once an important source of nitrates for fertilizer and other chemical uses including gunpowder and fireworks.

The commencement of the export of nitrates to the Europe and the US in the 1830s marked the most important milestone in the history of the nitrate industry and brought consequences for the economies of the three countries sharing the Atacama Desert: Chile, Perú and Bolivia.

Antofagasta was founded in 1868, in October 1869 the extraction of nitrates commenced in Oficina Salar del Carmen, the first nitrate producing plant. In 1871, the Nitrate Railway was inaugurated, running from Iquique to La Noria in Peru. In 1873, the Peruvian Government established the Nitrate Trust (state monopoly), which was controlled from Tarapacá until the 1879–1883 "War of the Pacific". This political event was based on the boom of new "Oficinas salitreras" ("Saltpeter works") of quarrying nitratine to extract nitrate.

Since World War I the industry has been supplanted by fixing nitrogen from the air as the main source of nitrogen.[1][2]

This is a list of saltpeter works in the Tarapacá and Antofagasta regions. The information regarding Saltpeter works on this page is compiled from the data supplied by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Country Files (GNS).[3] Unique Feature Identifier (UFI) is a number which uniquely identifies a Geoname feature. Same UFI means same feature.

1890 map of salpeter works in Tarapacá
More information Oficina, Latitude ...

See also

References

  1. [1]
    "Album Desierto - History about Nitrate (English)".
  2. [2]
    History of the Haber process
  3. [3]
    The data was retrieved on 19 January 2013 and was selected from records with "Oficina" as a place name.
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