The capital of Araucanía and the gateway to Mapuche Chile — where Temuco sits in the Cautín River valley at the northern edge of the Chilean Lake District and is the primary urban centre of the Araucanía region (the region with the largest indigenous Mapuche population in Chile — approximately 300,000 Mapuche people live in the region's communities), the Mercado Municipal de Temuco (the central indoor market where Mapuche women vendors in traditional chamal (dark wool dress) and trarilonko (headband) sell machica (toasted flour), merquén (smoked Mapuche chilli), and medicinal plants alongside fresh produce — the most Mapuche-immersive food market in urban Chile) is the city's daily cultural heart, the Feria Pinto (the open-air artisan market outside the station) is where Mapuche silversmiths sell the most elaborately worked silver jewellery in Chile, and the Monumento Natural Cerro Ñielol (a 90-hectare native forest reserve within the city limits) contains the site where the Chilean government signed the last treaty ceding Mapuche territory in 1881
Temuco (360,000 city; 420,000 metro) is the capital of the Araucanía Region and the sixth-largest city in Chile — the major commercial and transport hub of the Chilean Lake District and the region where more than 300,000 Mapuche people live in rural communities and urban peripheries. Temuco is considered the most Mapuche city in Chile and has the country's highest proportion of indigenous residents among its major urban centres.
Temuco was founded in 1881 by the Chilean army on land taken from the Mapuche people in the Pacification of Araucanía — the military campaign (1861–1883) in which the Chilean state conquered and occupied the Wallmapu (Mapuche homeland), the territory south of the Biobío River that the Mapuche had successfully defended against Spanish colonial rule for 280 years. The Mapuche are the only indigenous people in the Americas who were never conquered by the Spanish Empire (the Arauco War lasted from 1536 to 1818) — making the Chilean military pacification a uniquely significant act of conquest in i…