The Province of Huasco is located in the south of III the Region of Atacama, has a surface of 19,066 km2 and has a population of 66,491 inhabitants. Its provincial capital is the city of Vallenar. One is at heart of the drawer of the Huasco River, with a population of around 47,000 inhabitants.

History
The valley of the Huasco was occupied from the conquest of the country by Spanish encomenderos, mainly in the coastal zone. Governor Ambrosio ÓHiggins, just assumed his mandate, crossed in horse and boat the North zone of Chile until the present city of Copiapó. On his return, on 1789, it founded the city of Vallenar with the name of San Ambrosio de Ballenary, in memory of his native hamlet in the county of Sligo in Ireland, choosing personally the place, equidistant between the coast (present city of Huasco) and the narrow drawer cordilleranoDesde its Vallenar beginning has been a city with an important mining activity. In 1811, when being discovered a mine of silver in the zone (bitter Water, to 24 km of the city), Jose Miguel Race commands to found on the city the first bank in Chile. Soon, in the 1839, the first particular ticket emission becomes of the country, in charge of Alexander in Ignacio Walker. The 1892 arrive the railroad from Huasco and in 1959 the Mining Company of the Pacific initiates its operations, with the iron mines of Santa Fe, Carob tree and the Colorados.Actualmente the more important mining project of the zone is the Passover Project Licks, that consists of the operation on the part of the Canadian company Barrik, of a gold mine in the cordillerano limit of the valley of the Huasco with Argentina.This project widely has been questioned by its environmental impact, since it would be located in the affluents of the Huasco River, that is the sustenance dce the agricultural and human activity of the province, and in addition would alter the hydric and ecological reserves of the region, when needing for his ejecuciíon the existing glacier removal in the high mountain range. Until aims of the 2005 project whatever to its agricultural history is in its environmental evaluation on the part of the regulating organism national CONAMA.En, in 1823 is constructed the first irrigation channel, which was followed by many others, until being constructed, in the government of Eduardo Frei, Embalse Santa Juana.Actualmente the two main economic sources of the city is the mining (fundamentally of the iron), and agriculture (olive and pisquera grape for export, and fruits and vegetables that supplies to the local population).