La Rinconada

La Rinconada is a gold mining town in the Peruvian Andes, in the Ananea District of San Antonio de Putina Province in the Puno Region. At up to 5,100 metres above sea level it is the highest larger permanent settlement in the world, standing on the side of Mount Ananea at the foot of the Auchita glacier, also called the Sleeping Beauty. It grew from a small prospector camp to an estimated 30,000 people between 2001 and 2009 as the price of gold rose 235 percent, although the 2007 and 2017 censuses did not show numbers so high. Its economy rests on artisanal gold mining, both legal and illegal. The town has gained notoriety for altitude sickness, pollution, poverty and violence and has been called the lawless city of Peru. The tundra climate gives an average annual temperature of 1.3 degrees Celsius and about 707 millimetres of precipitation, concentrated in the southern summer.