Pichilemu
Pichilemu, originally known as Pichilemo, is a beach resort city and commune in central Chile, and capital of Cardenal Caro Province in the O'Higgins Region. The commune comprises an urban centre and twenty-two villages, including Ciruelos, Cáhuil, and Cardonal de Panilonco. It is located southwest of Santiago. Pichilemu had over 13,000 residents as of 2012.
The Pichilemu area was long populated by the indigenous Promaucaes. European-Chilean development began in the mid-sixteenth century, as conquistador Pedro de Valdivia gave Juan Gómez de Almagro the Topocalma encomienda in January 1541. Pichilemu was established as a subdelegation on 16 August 1867, and later as an "autonomous commune" on 22 December 1891, by decree of the President Jorge Montt and Interior Minister Manuel José Irarrázabal. Agustín Ross Edwards, a Chilean politician and member of the Ross Edwards family, planned to develop it as a beach resort on the Pacific Ocean for upper-class Chileans.
Pichilemu is home to five of the National Monuments of Chile: Agustín Ross Cultural Centre and Park; the wooden railway station, [|Estación Pichilemu]; El Árbol tunnel; and the Caballo de Agua. Part of the city was declared a Zona Típica by the National Monuments Council, in 2004.
The city is part of District No. 16 and is in the senatorial constituency of O'Higgins Region electoral division. Pichilemu is home to the main beach in O'Higgins Region. It is a tourist destination for surfing, windsurfing and funboarding.
Tourism is the main industry of the city, but forestry and handicrafts are also important. Pichilemu has many expansive dark sand beaches. Several surf championships take place in the city each year at Punta de Lobos.
History
Pichilemu was inhabited by Promaucaes, a pre-Columbian tribal group, until the Spanish conquest of Chile. They were hunter-gatherers and fishermen who lived primarily along the Cachapoal and Maule rivers. The remaining Promaucaes were assimilated into Chilean society through a process of hispanicisation and mestisation after the conquest of Chile.Aureliano Oyarzún, professor of pathology at University of Chile, investigated pre-Ceramic middens from Pichilemu and Cahuil. His book Crónicas de Pichilemu–Cáhuil was published posthumously, in 1957. Tomás Guevara published two volumes of Historia de Chile, Chile Prehispánico in 1929, which discusses the indigenous centre of Apalta, the Pichilemu middens, the Malloa petroglyphs, a stone cup from Nancagua, and pottery finds in Peralillo.
José Toribio Medina, who was a writer and historiographer, spent most of his life in Colchagua Province, and completed his first archeological investigations in Pichilemu. In 1908, he published Los Restos Indígenas de Pichilemu, in which he stated that the Indians that were inhabiting Pichilemu when the Spaniards arrived at Chile were Promaucaes, part of the Topocalma encomienda, given on 24 January 1544, by Pedro de Valdivia to Juan Gómez de Almagro, therefore establishing Pichilemu.
During the colonial and Republican periods, agriculture was promoted by the government. Many Chilean haciendas were successful during this time, including the Pichileminian Hacienda San Antonio de Petrel. Part of the land where San Antonio de Petrel was created was given by the Captaincy General of Chile to Bartolomé de Rojas y Puebla in 1611, who later acquired more lands in order to establish it. San Antonio de Petrel produced leather, jerky, soles, tallow, and cordovan, as well as other products which would later be exported to Peru, or sold in Santiago and Valparaíso. San Antonio de Petrel was bordered by properties of Lauriano Gaete and Ninfa Vargas, and Pedro Pavez Polanco.
The area around Pichilemu was densely populated, especially in Cáhuil, where there are salt deposits that were exploited by natives. Pichilemu has had censuses taken since the 17th century.
In 1872, President of Chile Aníbal Pinto commissioned the corvette captain Francisco Vidal Gormaz to perform a survey of the coast between Tumán Creek and Boca del Mataquito. He concluded that Pichilemu was the best place to construct a ferry. The family of Daniel Ortúzar, inheritors of the hacienda San Antonio de Petrel, constructed a dock in 1875, which served as a fishing port for a few years, and would be decreed as a "minor dock" by President José Manuel Balmaceda in 1887. Homes were built along the dock on what currently is the Daniel Ortúzar Avenue. The name Pichilemu comes from the Mapudungún words pichi and lemu.
During the Civil War of 1891, Daniel Ortúzar and the priest of Alcones were transferred as prisoners from Pichilemu to Valparaíso via the dock, which was later burned. The dock was later reconstructed and used until 1912, but it never reached "port" status.
The inheritors of Lauriano Gaete and Ninfa Vargas, who were proprietors of the land which is currently Central Pichilemu, founded the town in late 1891 after conceiving the design of the city with engineer Emilio Nichón. By decree of President Jorge Montt and his Interior Minister, Manuel José Irarrázabal, the city was officially established as an "autonomous commune" on 22 December 1891. José María Caro Martínez became the first mayor of the city in 1894, and regularised and improved the design of the city the same year. Caro Martínez held the mayor office until 1905.
Agustín Ross Edwards, a Chilean writer, Member of Parliament, minister, and politician, bought a tract of land, and named it La Posada, in 1885. At the time, it was merely a set of thick-walled barracks.
Agustín Ross turned Pichilemu into a summer resort town for affluent people from Santiago. He designed an urban setting that included a park and a forest of over. He transformed La Posada into a hotel, named Gran Hotel Pichilemu, which has since been renamed to Hotel Agustín Ross. He built the Ross Casino, several chalets, terraces, embankments, stone walls, a balcony facing the beach, and several large homes with building materials and furniture imported from France and England. However, Ross was not able to build the dock he had planned for the city. He died in 1926 in Viña del Mar. Agustín Ross' inheritors donated all of his construction to the Municipality of Pichilemu, on the condition that the municipality would hold them for recreation and public access. The Agustín Ross Casino, constructed in 1905, and the Agustín Ross Park, constructed in 1885, have since become an important part of the city, and have been declared Monumentos Históricos by the National Monuments Council.
After the creation of the Cardenal Caro Province, by decree of General Augusto Pinochet on 3 October 1979, Pichilemu became its capital. The province is named after the first Chilean Catholic Cardinal, José María Caro Rodríguez, who was born in Pichilemu.
Pichilemu was severely affected by the 2010 Chile earthquake and its subsequent tsunami, which caused massive destruction in the coastal zone. On 11 March 2010, at 11:39:41, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake occurred northwest of Pichilemu, killing one person.
Geography
Pichilemu is located west of San Fernando, in the westernmost area of the O'Higgins Region, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. It is within a three-hour drive of the Andes Mountains. It is near the Cordillera de la Costa which rises to in elevation.The city is bordered by Litueche to the north, Paredones to the south, and Marchigüe and Pumanque to the east. To the west lies the Pacific Ocean. Pichilemu covers an area of.
Pichilemu is located close to a geological fault, which is according to reports between the city and Vichuquén at 15 km depth, 40 km in length and 20 km wide. It is not known whether the fault was formed during the March 2010 earthquake or if it was just reactivated.
Although the majority of the forest areas around Pichilemu are covered with pine and eucalyptus plantations, a native Maulino forest remains. It contains species such as litres, quillayes, boldos, espinos, and peumos.
The city consists of an urban centre and twenty-two rural villages: Alto Colorado, Alto Ramírez, Barrancas, Cáhuil, Cardonal de Panilonco, Ciruelos, Cóguil, El Maqui, El Guindo, Espinillo, Estación Larraín Alcalde, La Aguada, La Palmilla, La Villa, La Plaza, Las Comillas, Pueblo de Viudas, Quebrada del Nuevo Reino, Pañul, Rodeillo, San Antonio de Petrel, and Tanumé.
Nearby bodies of water include the Estero Nilahue, which flows to Laguna Cáhuil, Estero Petrel, which flows to Laguna Petrel, and El Barro, El Bajel, and El Ancho lagoons, the latter of which provides the city with drinking water.
Pichilemu experiences a Mediterranean climate, with winter rains which reach. The rest of the year is dry, often windy, and sometimes with coastal fog. Occasionally the city receives winds as high as.
Demographics
By the 17th century, Pichilemu had 1,468 inhabitants. In 1787, Pichilemu held 1,688 inhabitants, and the population rose to 11,829 by 1895. From there onward, the city's population progressively decreased: 7,787 inhabitants in 1907; 7,424 in 1920; 6,929 in 1930; and 6,570 in 1940. In 1952, the city's population increased to 7,150 inhabitants; however, the 1960 census showed it decreased to 5,724 inhabitants, and to 5,459 in 1970. The number of people in Pichilemu reached 8,844 in 1982, and in 1992, 10,510. As of the 2002 census, the population comprised 12,392 people, and 6,228 households.The 2002 census classified 9,459 people as living in an urban area and 2,933 people as living in a rural area, with 6,440 men and 5,952 women. According to the 2002 Casen survey, 544 inhabitants of the population live in extreme poverty compared to the average in the greater O'Higgins Region of 4.5%, and 1,946 inhabitants live in mild poverty, compared to the regional average of 16.1%.
The National Statistics Institute of Chile has estimated that, as of 2010, 78.96% of the inhabitants in the city were living in an urban area and 21.04% were living in a rural area, with 52.4% men and 47.5% women; the population density was estimated as 19.09 per square mile. In the 2012 census, the population of Pichilemu was 13,916 inhabitants; although earlier estimates put it higher.
Most of the people from Pichilemu are Catholic, as of the 2002 census, 7,611 persons, well above the national and regional average ; the evangelical population is considerably lower, at only 689 people ; 361 said they were Atheists or Agnostic individuals, while the remaining 460 are part of other religions. Based on information from the Casen survey, twenty-four persons living in Pichilemu declared themselves as Aymaras in 2006, and in 2009, 390 people said they were part of the Mapuche indigenous ethnic group; the survey revealed no one living in Pichilemu claimed to be either of the Atacameños or of the Rapa Nui indigenous peoples.