Temuco


Temuco is a city and commune, capital of the Cautín Province and of the Araucanía Region in southern Chile. The city is located south of Santiago. The city grew out from a fort of the same name established in 1881 during Chile's invasion of Araucanía. Temuco lies in the middle of the historic Araucanía, a traditional land of the indigenous Mapuche.
Temuco's central place in Araucanía with easy access to the Andean valleys, lakes and coastal areas makes it a hub for tourism, agricultural, livestock and forestry operations as well as a communication and trade centre for the numerous small towns of Araucanía. Temuco has recently been regarded as a university city as it houses two large universities: University of the Frontier and Temuco Catholic University. Nobel laureates Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda both lived in Temuco for some time.

Etymology

The word Temuco comes from the Mapudungun language, meaning "temu water"; "temu" is the common name of two native trees of the family Myrtaceae, Luma apiculata and Blepharocalyx cruckshanksii. Both species are characterized by their orange-reddish bark and by having aromatic fruits and leaves which are commonly used by the Mapuche for medicinal purposes. While Blepharocalyx cruckschankii is endangered, Luma apiculata is relatively common and in Temuco it is possible to see it in the Cerro Ñielol Natural Monument as well as in city gardens and sidewalks. The blend between the words "temu" and "co", probably reflects the fact that these trees frequently grow beside water bodies.

History

The area around Temuco began to be settled by non-indigenous Chileans in the mid-1870s, when for example Labranza began to be settled.
The city was founded by Chilean army on 24 February 1881, as a fort during the Occupation of the Araucanía. Manuel Recabarren, in charge of the project, named the place Fuerte Recabarren.
Formed as a military encampment, Temuco had in its origins the attributes of a camp, and a year after its founding, the first major streets started to form in the downtown area.
On 15 April 1888, the first city officers were elected including the first mayor José del Rosario Muñoz. The city grew quickly; a census in 1895 indicated a population of 7,708 people, and when Cautin was declared a province, Temuco became its capital, with its population by that time of 16,037 people.
Chilean poetry has deep roots in Temuco. Nobel laureates Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda both lived in Temuco. Mistral was the principal of an all-girls school where Neruda would visit her and show her his first verses when he was around 15 years old.
In 2010 Temuco was affected by the earthquake on 27 February centered to the north. It was one of the most affected regions of Chile besides Santiago, Concepcion, Valparaíso and others. The earthquake registered 8.8 Mw on the moment magnitude scale. Though landlocked Temuco avoided the tsunamis the earthquake caused, many very strong aftershocks throughout the country followed, including a 7.1 MW earthquake northwest of the city.
Nowadays, Temuco is a fast growing city with diversified commerce and services.

Demographics

According to the 2017 census by the National Statistics Institute, Temuco had a communal population of 282,415. Of these, 263,165 lived in urban areas and 19,250 in rural areas. The population grew by 15.11% between the 2002 and 2017 censuses. The INE projected the 2024 population to be 309,696, The Greater Temuco metropolitan area, including the neighbouring commune of Padre Las Casas, has a population of 410,520 people, which makes it the second largest city south of Santiago, and the sixth largest in the country. One of the distinctive features of Temuco is the strong presence of the Mapuche culture, who make up 23.1% of the population in the Temuco commune, and numerous German immigrant colonies. Temuco proper has a population of 227,086.
The locals are called temuquenses. The inhabitants have diverse origins. Temuco has a high percentage of people of Basque ancestry, as well as Castilian and other Spanish nationalities. There is a substantial indigenous component, mainly Mapuche, accounting for 13% of the population of Temuco, which makes it the city of Chile with the largest indigenous presence.
There is also a large percentage of temuquences directly descended from European immigrants, many of whom arrived during 1883–1901. The main European sources are Switzerland, Spain, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Others, less numerous and from many other parts of Europe such as the Netherlands, Austria, Croatia, Armenia, Greece, Portugal, etc., arrived after that first migration, especially during the World Wars. During the Spanish Civil War, a large percentage of Aragonese, Asturians, Catalans, Galicians, Navarrese and Basques reached a significant number of immigrants from Europe.
There are also small communities of Jews, from Russia, Poland, Macedonia, Hungary, as well as Central and Eastern Europe in general, and Arabs, from Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. This immigration from Europe and, to a lesser extent, Jewish and Arabic areas helps to explain the various clubs, schools, and sections of the city of Temuco. There are East Asian colonies of Chinese, Japanese and Koreans in Temuco, dating back to the end of the Korean War in the 1950s when thousands of Korean refugees settled through U.N. relocation programs to Chile.

Religion

Since its founding, the city of Temuco has been characterised by a mixture of religious beliefs, notably the arrival of Christianity in the lives of the pre-founding inhabitants. Ancestral beliefs are not followed by the majority of Mapuches; on the contrary, many have converted to Protestantism or Catholicism. The German colony in the city has the Lutheran Church of Temuco as its place of worship, which stands out for its unique architecture and the celebration of Mass in German.
According to data from the National Institute of Statistics, the Catholic population decreased from 69.5% in 1992 to 61.7% in 2002, and the Evangelical-Protestant population increased from 20.7% in 1992 to 23.8% in 2002. The same trend was expected for the 2012 census. However, according to Catholic sources, the percentage of the population of this branch of Christianity covered by the Diocese of Temuco in 1990 was 78%, a figure that fell to 72% in 2000, 64.7% in 2010 and reached 64.0% in 2020
There is also a small Jewish community in the city. Officially, the first Jew to settle in Temuco was the young tailor Alberto Levy, who arrived from Bitola, now North Macedonia, in 1900. Over the years, the number of Jewish immigrants grew. Thus, by the 1907 census, there were fourteen Jews in the area, and by the 1920 census, the number was around two hundred and eighty. This community, one of the oldest in Chile, built its own cemetery and the Club Israelita de Temuco, whose founders included the Albala, Camhi, Russo, Cohen, Ergas and Levy families. The country's first synagogue, named Kahal Kadosh, was also founded in Temuco. It was inaugurated on 15 September 1928 with a ceremony in which the Sefer Torah was read and the shofar was played. A children's choir conducted by Professor Jacob Palti Oplatka also participated. Most of its members had not attended an Israeli religious ceremony since their arrival in Chile. The synagogue, which for a time was the headquarters of the Hebrew School, is still in use on General Cruz Street.

Notable people

Temuco is located in a valley in the center-south of Chile, equidistant between the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Andes to the east. Morphologically, the city placement corresponds to Cautín River-originated fluvial land masses that developed in a crushed form between two hills, Ñielol and Conunhueno.

Economy

Although the region of La Araucanía is the poorest in Chile, the city of Temuco concentrates most of the region’s wealth, paradoxically positioning it as a wealthy city on par with Antofagasta, Punta Arenas, and Santiago. This is evident from per capita consumption figures in both supermarkets and shopping centers.
Its metropolitan area hosts internationally recognized factories such as Rosen and Surlat, among others—especially linked to the furniture industry.
Temuco also has the largest shopping mall in southern Chile, located in the Avenida Alemania district. It was built by a typical representative of the city’s German community, businessman Horst Paulmann—one of the largest retailers in Hispanic America, and number one in Argentina with Jumbo. He began to build his fortune just a few blocks from where Portal Temuco stands today, in what was once Las Brisas, the region’s first supermarket, where the Cencosud retail empire was born.
According to the National Training and Employment Service, there are 79 Technical Training Organizations in the region, 52 of which are concentrated in Temuco.