Map

Calama (Calama)

Calama is a city and commune in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. It is the capital of El Loa Province, part of the Antofagasta Region. Calama is one of the driest cities in the world with average annual precipitation of just 5 mm. The River Loa, Chile's longest, flows through the city. Calama has a population of 147,886 (2012 census).

The commune also encompasses the Quechua communities of Estación San Pedro, Toconce and Cupo; and the Lickan-antay communities of Taira, Conchi Viejo, Lasana, San Francisco de Chiu Chiu, Aiquina-Turi, and Caspana.

In 2003 the nearby town of Chuquicamata, once the largest open-pit copper mine in the world, was dismantled citing environmental reasons and encroachment from the mine's expansion. Residents of Chuquicamata then moved to Calama, away from company-owned residences, to find housing on their own.

There are a variety of hypotheses about the origin of the name "Calama," but the two main accounts suggest that it comes from the Kunza language, spoken in the past by the Lickan-antay, an ethnic group that resides in the El Loa Province.

Hector Pumarino Soto suggests that "Calama" stems from the Kunza word "Ckara-ama," which means "town in the middle of the water". Until the middle of the 20th century, the urban site of Calama and the surrounding oasis were flanked by the River Loa on two sides, and the fertile plain and swamps on the other sides, giving the location the appearance of an island in the middle of the desert surrounded completely by water.

Emilio Vaïsse, meanwhile, says that Calama comes from the Kunza word "Ckolama," which means "place where partridges abound". This is supposed testimony to the abundance of such a bird, living over everything in the middle of the western swamp sector.