Coquimbo Region

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IV Región de Coquimbo

See other Chilean regions
Capital	La Serena
Provinces	Elqui Limarí Choapa
Area   - Total	Ranked 7th 40,579.9 km²
Population   - 2002 Census   - Density	Ranked 8th 603,210 14.8/km²
ISO 3166-2	CL-CO

Coquimbo is Chile's fourth administrative region from north to south. It is some 400 km north of the capital, Santiago.

The capital and largest city is La Serena, Chile's second oldest city -- an attractive, colonial-style beach resort. Coquimbo, a seaport with a greater industrial base than La Serena, is also a beach resort; generally regarded as grittier, and therefore less attractive for recreational purposes, it has undergone significant urban renewal projects in recent years and as a result it has seen an increase in tourism.

The Coquimbo region forms the narrowest part, or 'waist' of Chile, and is hence one of the country's more mountainous regions, as the Andes range runs closer to the sea than elsewhere.

As well as tourism, the province's main industries are agriculture and fishing. Ovalle is an agricultural centre.

The Los Pelambres copper mine, near Salamanca in Choapa is one of the largest in the world with some 2,100 million tonnes of reserves.

Nobel Laureate poet Gabriela Mistral was a native of Vicuña, in the Elqui Valley, a Pisco producing area, famous for its beauty and clear skies.

The Elqui Valley is home to a number of astronomical observatories thanks to the region's clear skies. It is also home to a 600-meter-long dam, the Puclaro, which dams the Elqui River and produces a reservoir of some 7km in length.