Alto Hospicio
| Alto Hospicio | ||||||
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| Commune | ||||||
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| Coordinates: 20°15′S 70°07′W / 20.250°S 70.117°WCoordinates: 20°15′S 70°07′W / 20.250°S 70.117°W | ||||||
| Country |
 Chile
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| Region |
 Tarapacá
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| Province | Iquique Province | |||||
| Government | ||||||
| • Type | Municipal council | |||||
| • Alcalde | Ramón Galleguillos Castillo | |||||
| Area | ||||||
| • Total | 593.2 km2 (229.0 sq mi) | |||||
| Elevation | 600 m (2,000 ft) | |||||
| Population (2012 Census) | ||||||
| • Total | 94,441 | |||||
| • Density | 160/km2 (410/sq mi) | |||||
| Demonym(s) | Hospiciano | |||||
| Time zone | CLT (UTC−4) | |||||
| • Summer (DST) | CLST (UTC−3) | |||||
| Postal code | 1130000 | |||||
| Area code(s) | (+56) 5 | |||||
| Website | Official website (Spanish) | |||||
Alto Hospicio is a Chilean municipality and commune located next to Iquique, in the Iquique Province, I Region. It is a fast-growing popular area in the heights of Iquique and has a population of 94,254 according to the prelimanry result of the 2012 census. It is the second largest commune of the Greater Iquique urbanization with a total population of 275,000 in 2012.
The first inhabitants of Alto Hospicio were the Chango indigenous group, that arrived from the coast. They climbed 550 meters from the cove of Ique Ique during the so-called Festival of the Mule (Bajo Molle), and stopped to rest on the pampa. During Inca times of Tupac Inca Yupanqui (1380 - 1410 CE), Spanish began to exploit the silver deposits of Huantajaya located about three miles northeast of Alto Hospicio Central Prison. Exploitation of silver continued until the end of the eighteenth century when Basilio de la Fuente, a prominent resident of the town of San Lorenzo of Tarapacá, made a fortune with the mineral and funded major irrigation works. After the War of the Pacific, Alto Hospicio was little more than a desolate train station (specifically the area of High Molle), where no more than 100 people lived. By the 1950s, groups of Aymara farmers settled in the area, bringing agricultural products from the inland altiplano. They constructed modest plots for small-scale horticulture and agriculture (both crops and livestock). The economic boom experienced Iquique in the mid-1990s, fomented a population explosion in Alto Hospicio. It was transformed from a small town of about 2,000 inhabitants in the early nineties to a huge city with over 100,000 inhabitants. Alto Hospicio is 10 km away and 600 m above Lower Iquique. In August 2007 the Alto Hospicio Basic Emergency Hospital opened in La Pampa area of the city. Though originally part of Iquique, Alto Hospicio was incorporated as its own municipality on 12 April 2004, when Law No. 19943 was approved under President Ricardo Lagos Escobar .
Preliminary results of the 2012 census indicate a population of 94,254 inhabitants of Alto Hospicio. According to the 2002 census of the National Statistics Institute, Alto Hospicio had 50,215 inhabitants. Of these (99.995%) lived in urban areas outside Iquique, and only 0.0005% in rural areas due to its desert like surrounding. The population grew by nearly 900% (44,627 persons) between the 1992 and 2002 censuses and similar (90.7%) between 2002 and 2012 by about 44,000 inhabitants.
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