Atacama Desert Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert () is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1000-km (600-mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. The Atacama desert is one of the driest places in the world (the driest being the McMurdo Dry Valleys ) , as well as the only true desert to receive less precipitation than the polar deserts. According to estimates, the Atacama Desert occupies , or if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included. Most of the desert is composed of stony terrain, salt lakes ("salares"), sand, and felsic lava
War of the Pacific in the Andes. For the first five months the war played out in a naval campaign, as Chile struggled to establish a sea-based resupply corridor for its forces in the world’s driest desert. In February 1878, Bolivia imposed a new tax on a Chilean mining company (“Compañía de Salitres y Ferrocarril de Antofagasta”, CSFA) despite Bolivian express warranty in the 1874 Boundary Treaty that it would not increase taxes on Chilean persons or industries for 25 years. Chile protested and solicited to submit it to mediation, but Bolivia refused and considered it a subject of Bolivia’s courts. Chile insisted and