Tacna

Tacna on the map of Peru

The city of Tacna, the regional capital of the South American Andean country Peru is situated on 552 meters above sea level and has approximately 280,000 inhabitants.

Local situation and cityscape

Tacna is located on the Río Caplina, in 56 kilometers from Arica, about the same distance to the sea coast and 1295 km southeast of the Peruvian capital of Lima and near the border with Chile. The city is due to its border location of strategic importance.

On Paseo Civico is designed by Gustave Eiffel in 1872 and began cathedral. There are also the bronze statues of Admiral Miguel Grau Seminario and General Francisco Bolognesi. There is in the city a history museum, a railway museum and the Universidad Nacional Jorge Basadre Grohmann.

History

The city was founded in 1572 by the Spanish conquistadors.

Tacna was the capital of the short-lived Peruvian- Bolivian Confederation. During the Salpeterkrieges a battle between Peru and Chile took place above the city on the Campo de la Alianza, on account of which Tacna initially fell to Chile within the framework of the Treaty of Ancon on 20 October 1883. Condition, however, was that after 10 years, a referendum should be conducted. 1929, the open issue to Tacna and Arica, the two cities has been clarified on the basis of an arbitral award of U.S. President Calvin Coolidge in 1925 in the Treaty of Lima. Since 1929, Tacna and Arica, Peru belongs definitively to Chile.

In June 2001, Tacna and its region was affected by an earthquake.

Air table

Sons and daughters of the town

• Federico Gerdes (1873-1953), composer, conductor and pianist