Chile's second city on the Biobío River and the birthplace of Chilean rock — where Concepción sits at the mouth of the Biobío River (historically the frontier between Spanish colonial Chile and the Mapuche nation — the river was the effective boundary of the Spanish Empire for 300 years until the Pacification of Araucanía in 1883), the city has been destroyed by earthquakes and tsunamis at least eight times since its founding in 1550, the 2010 Biobío earthquake (8.8 Mw — the sixth-strongest earthquake ever recorded) reduced large sections of the city to rubble overnight, the 1990s music scene centred around the Universidad de Concepción launched virtually every major Chilean rock and alternative band of the era (Los Tres, Los Bunkers, La Ley — a phenomenon known in Chile as 'La Movida Concepcionista'), the Barrio Universitario campus (one of the most beautiful university campuses in South America, with a central lagoon and the Mural de América Latina — the largest outdoor mural in Latin America, painted by Mexican muralist Jorge González Camarena in 1965) is the cultural heart of the city, and the Hualpen Peninsula (a wild 2,000-hectare nature reserve at the junction of the Biobío River and the Pacific Ocean) is one of the least-visited natural areas accessible from a major South American city
Concepción (250,000 city; 1,000,000 metro) is the second-largest city in Chile and the capital of the Biobío Region — an industrial and university city on the Pacific coast at the mouth of the Biobío River, 500 km south of Santiago. Concepción is Chile's most significant industrial city (the Huachipato steel mill at Talcahuano, 10 km north, was the largest steelworks in South America for decades) and has the highest concentration of universities per capita in Chile.
Concepción was founded in 1550 by Pedro de Valdivia (the same conquistador who founded Santiago and Valdivia) and has been destroyed and rebuilt more times than any other major city in the Americas — by earthquakes in 1570, 1730, 1751, 1835, 1939, and 2010. Charles Darwin visited Concepción's ruins in 1835 after an earthquake, writing that 'the most awful spectacle I ever beheld' was the destruction of the cathedral's bell tower. The 2010 Maule earthquake (8.8 Mw — the sixth-strongest earthquake ever recorded) struck at 3:34 AM on February 27, 2010, killing 525 people and destroying large sec…