Temuco

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Temuco

Temuco, city of 210,587 inhabitants (2005) on the northern bank of the Cautín River, the most important urban center of the Araucanía region of Chile (2002 population 869, 535). Founded in 1881 by General Gregorio Urrutia after a pacification campaign conducted against the bellicose Araucanian Indians, it became an active colonization center and an outpost to keep the Araucanians at bay. Chilean, Swiss, and German families settled in Temuco, which by 1950 had grown into the fourth-largest urban center of the country. More than an industrial city, Temuco is a service and administrative center for wheat and dairy farmers and for the 185,000 Araucanians who still live in Temuco's environs.

See alsoAraucana, La; Chile, Geography.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Instituto de Estudios Indígenas. Tierra, territorio y desarrollo indígena. Temuco, Chile: Instituto de Estudios Indígenas, Universidad de la Frontera, 1995.

                                          CÉsar N. Caviedes