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NASA · Public domain
Landmark Americas wonder

Atacama Desert

3000 BCE – still standing

Driest non-polar desert on Earth in northern Chile, with otherworldly salt flats and the world's best stargazing

Wikipedia

The opening of the article, and a way into the rest of it without leaving the site.

Atacama Desert on Wikipedia.

Who held this ground

Borders from dated snapshots, up to a century apart; precision varies.

Reconstruction

  1. No border recorded here in this snapshot (3000 BCE)
  2. Mesoamerican hunter-gatherers and maize farmers (2000 BCE) Border precision: Approximate
  3. Andean hunter-gatherers (1500 BCE–500 CE) Border precision: Approximate
  4. Tiahuanaco Empire (600 CE–1200 CE) Border precision: Approximate
  5. Aymara kingdoms (1279 CE–1400 CE) Border precision: Approximate
  6. Chichas (1492 CE) Border precision: Approximate
  7. Inca Empire (1500 CE–1530 CE) Border precision: Approximate
  8. Vice-Royalty of Peru (1600 CE–1815 CE) Border precision: Approximate
  9. Bolivia (1880 CE–1900 CE) Border precision: Defined
  10. Chile (1914 CE–2026 CE) Border precision: Defined
Border precision
  • Defined
  • Approximate

Elsewhere in Americas at the time

Records whose own span overlaps this one, found by the same test the canvas draws with. The bar under each card is where it sits inside this one.

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Image credits 5 pictures from Wikimedia Commons