San Juan de Marcona

More than five hundred people perished while only about 20 managed to survive, including the Peruvian writer Ricardo Palma.

In 1870, the wise Italian Antonio Raimondi published the existence of an iron deposit in the plains of Marcona.

In 1925 the government president Augusto B. Leguía declared the Marcona National Reserve in order to allow future exploitation.

In 1943 the Peruvian state created the Corporación Peruana del Santa in order to exploit the carbon and iron reserves.

Marcona is the northernmost of the 3 ports that comprise the Peruvian termini of the Interoceanic Highway which is being constructed to link the state of Acre, in the Amazon Basin in Brazil, across the Andes to the Pacific Ocean.