La Oroya

La Oroya is a city of about 33,000 people on the River Mantaro in central Peru. It is situated on the Altiplano some 176 km east-north-east of the national capital, Lima, and is capital of the Yauli Province. La Oroya is the location of a smelting operation that earned the town a place on the Blacksmith Institute's 2007 report, "The World's Worst Polluted Places". Settlement at La Oroya dates to about 10,000 years BC. In 1533, the Spanish established a small settlement and started small-scale mining for precious metals in the area, but isolation and transport difficulties hindered extraction. At the time of the War of Independence, the area's strategic position made it a center of guerrilla activity; one of the decisive battles of the...