Copiapó

People have lived in the Copiapó valley for around 10,000 years. Before the Spanish arrived it was home to the Diaguita, who came under Inca rule in the 15th century; remains of their fortresses survive in the valley, and the town later grew up around the remains of an Inca cemetery. The Spanish named the settlement San Francisco de la Selva — Saint Francis of the Jungle — for the lush vegetation of the valley, and the town was formally founded on 8 December 1744.

Silver changed everything. In 1832 Juan Godoy discovered the rich deposits of Chañarcillo, about 60 km away, and Copiapó became the centre of the Chilean silver rush and, until the War of the Pacific, the country's northernmost city and main mining town. Its wealth paid for the first railway in Chile, built from the port of Caldera by the American businessman William Wheelwright and opened in stages from 1850. Mining families such as the Mattas grew rich and political: the Radical Party was born in Copiapó in the mid-19th century.

Earthquakes have struck repeatedly; that of 1922 left 40 per cent of the city's buildings on the ground. Copper took over from silver, with a state smelter at Paipote from 1953, and the city grew through the 20th century as a mining centre and regional capital. On 5 August 2010 the San José mine, 45 km to the north, collapsed and trapped 33 miners 700 metres underground; all were brought to the surface on 13 October, after 69 days, in a rescue watched around the world. In the early 21st century the Copiapó River itself has dried up.

Copiapó's identity is that of a mining town. Small-scale miners, the pirquineros, still sell their ore to the smelter at Paipote, a bronze statue honours Juan Godoy, the discoverer of Chañarcillo, and the Fénix 2 capsule that lifted the 33 miners to safety in 2010 is kept in the regional museum, along with the note 'Estamos bien en el refugio los 33' — 'We are fine in the shelter, the 33' — the first sign that they were alive.

The biggest religious event is the Fiesta de la Candelaria in the first days of February, in honour of the Virgen de la Candelaria, patron of miners. Dance troupes in elaborate costumes perform the dances of northern Chile around her church, and thousands of pilgrims arrive, with a trade fair alongside. Faith remains strong: at the 2002 census about three-quarters of residents described themselves as Roman Catholic.

The desert is the city's playground. The Raid Atacama off-road event, begun in 1992, has drawn hundreds of four-wheel-drive vehicles, the Dakar Rally has passed through, and there is sandboarding on the dunes of Cerro Imán. Football follows Deportes Copiapó, founded in 1999, which won promotion to Chile's top division for the first time in 2022. The University of Atacama, heir to the School of Mines of 1857, gives the city a student population.

The 2024 census counted 168,831 people in the commune, about 169,000, almost all of them in the city, and immigrants — mostly from elsewhere in South America — made up about 11 per cent. With Paipote and parts of neighbouring Tierra Amarilla it forms a single urban area. The older, flatter centre holds the shops, offices and colonial-era monuments, while the hillside Sectores Altos, largely middle- and working-class, have grown fast in recent years.

Mining is the largest part of the economy: large copper mines such as Candelaria near Tierra Amarilla, and many small and medium operations. Agriculture comes second, largely grapes, with olives, tomatoes, avocados and citrus, and the Atacama Region has become a centre of solar power. The city supplies the mines with transport, light industry and services, and commerce has grown, from the Plaza Real mall opened on the main square in 1994 to a newer mall beside the riverbed.

Water is the defining worry: the river that gave the valley its green has run dry, and mines, farms and households compete for what is left underground. Pollution from the smelter and mining activity is a recurring complaint, and public transport was overhauled in October 2025 with an all-electric bus fleet.

Copiapó eats like the rest of Chile, with a long lunch the main meal of a working day. Empanadas de pino, baked pastries filled with minced beef, onion, hard-boiled egg and olive, are sold everywhere, as are completos, loaded Chilean hot dogs, and pastel de choclo, a baked pie of sweet ground corn over a meat filling. Chinese restaurants are a fixture, as in all of northern Chile's mining cities.

The valley's farms supply grapes, olives, tomatoes and avocados, and the olive groves of the Huasco valley further south produce olives and oil sold across the region. Fish and shellfish come up from the coast at Caldera, an hour or so away, where scallops (ostiones) are farmed.

To drink, pisco — the grape brandy of the Atacama and Coquimbo regions — is taken as a pisco sour or a piscola with cola, alongside Chilean wine and beer. In the evening many households keep the Chilean habit of once, an evening tea, in place of a late dinner.