Puerto Maldonado
| Puerto Maldonado | |
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Central Plaza in Puerto Maldonado
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 Puerto Maldonado
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| Coordinates: 12°36′0″S 69°11′0″W / 12.60000°S 69.18333°W | |
| Country | Peru |
| Region | Madre de Dios Region |
| Province | Tambopata Province |
| Founded | July 10, 1902 |
| Elevation | 183 m (600 ft) |
| Population | |
| • Estimate (2015) | 74,494 |
| Time zone | UTC-5 |
Puerto Maldonado is a city in Southeastern Peru in the Amazon rainforest 55 kilometres (34 mi) west of the Bolivian border; located at the confluence of the Tambopata and Madre de Dios rivers, the latter of which joins the Madeira River as a tributary of the Amazon. It is the capital of the Madre de Dios Region.
Nearby are the Manú National Park, Tambopata National Reserve, and Bahuaja-Sonene National Park, which have been established to protect natural resources. These are some of the most pristine primary rain forests in the world. They include several oxbow lakes and clay licks, where hundreds of birds, including macaws, feed on clay.
Because it was less accessible by major rivers, the Madre de Dios region was among later ones to be explored in the late 19th century rubber boom. Rubber barons active in the region included the Peruvian Carlos Fermín Fitzcarrald of Iquitos, as well as Brazilian and Bolivian interests. The workers for tapping rubber brought in endemic European diseases, causing diseases and high fatalities among the indigenous peoples along the Manu River from 1889 to 1892, when the first rubber parties arrived, with another epidemic in 1896.
Fitzcarrald in his exploration found a short passage overland between the Mishagua, a tributary of the Urubamba River, and the Manu River, a tributary of the Madre de Dios River. This land was named as the Isthmus of Fitzcarrald after him. Transporting rubber across it enabled the product to be transferred to ships that could go down the Madre de Dios, connect to the Madeira River, a tributary of the Amazon River, and thereby to Atlantic ports and export markets. He also identified present-day Puerto Maldonado as a strategic location. He died in 1897 when his ship Contamana sank at this point in the river, where Puerto Maldonado was later founded.
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Wikipedia