San Juan de Marcona

San Juan de Marcona is the capital of the Marcona District of Nazca Province in the Ica Region of Peru, a mining, commercial, port and fishing town of about 20,000 inhabitants, known as the iron capital and the cradle of the Humboldt penguin on the Peruvian coast. It became important after 1952, when iron was first excavated from its deposits and the San Juan pier was completed by the American Marcona Mining Company, although archaeological remains at San Nicolás and San Fernando suggest ancient settlement of the desert. The Italian scientist Antonio Raimondi published the existence of the iron deposit in 1870, the first explorations came in 1915, and President Augusto B. Leguía declared the Marcona National Reserve in 1925. Fishermen from Pisco and Callao settled the small coves in the early twentieth century. The wreck of the BAP Rimac in 1855 killed more than five hundred people, and the writer Ricardo Palma was among the few survivors. The open-pit Marcona Mine was acquired in 1992 by the Chinese state corporation Shougang, and the town is the northernmost of the three Pacific terminals of the Interoceanic Highway.