In northern Chile there are many ghost towns that were abandoned long ago. They are slowly falling into ruin due to the harsh Atacama desert. These towns were built around a mining industry that produced saltpetre (sodium nitrate), this was used in fertilizer production from the late 1800s.
Chile is a desert plateau on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes Mountains, in the rain shadow of Andes. The Atacama desert stretches approximately 1600 km in northern Chile from the border of Peru. It is the driest nonpolar desert in the world, and the second driest overall. Meltwater from the desert creates green ribbons. Water is used for irrigation for farming. Wikipedia map -
During the heyday of mining, most of the world's saltpetre came from the Atacama Desert. It was known as white gold. Much of it went to Europe for use a fertiliser for food crops. It was a very important revenue for Chile.
Outside Iquique there is a monument to the nitrate workers at a roundabout. 
Leaching plant -
Poster advertising Chile fertiliser in Chinese
Old locomotives which were made in England -
The stores -
James Thomas Humberstone, also known by his Spanish name, Santiago Humberstone, was an English chemical engineer who arrived in South America in 1875 to work in the nitrate offices of Tarapacá, Northern Chile. The nitrate industry was quite intense until two German scientists synthesized ammonia during the late 1920s. This meant fertilizers could be produced more efficiently and at a fraction of the cost. Within 30 years, most of the towns and saltpetre works had virtually been abandoned.
Iquique and the mining town of Humberstone were originally in Peruvian territory when Humberstone arrived. Other saltpetre towns belonged to Bolivia. However many of the companies that operated in the area were Chilean backed by British investment and there was a large Chilean population. But then in 1878 Bolivia increased the taxes that an Anglo-Chilean company paid on its nitrate exports. This led to the War of the Pacific, 1879-1883. After four years the Chileans finally won and annexed a large area of nitrate rich Bolivian and Peruvian territory. This included the Peruvian province of Tarapaca.
The industry lasted until the first World War. In the war, the British stopped exports of saltpetre to Germany. This led to the German scientists finding a synthetic replacement to make fertilizer. That was the end of the Chilean nitrate industry.
James Humberstone died in 1939 in Iquique. Iquique is a coastal town that was built up from the nitrate mining and was known as the world’s nitrate capital as it was exported all over the world. The town has a mild desert climate and very little rainfall. Water comes from deep wells and is piped down from tanks in the desert.
The town is long and narrow and the desert hills come right down to the town. The historic centre has brightly coloured Georgian houses built between 1880 and 1920. Astoreca Palace is an imposing mansion from 1904. Plaza Prat has exotic palm trees that Iquiquenos brought to decorate the city. There is a clock tower from 1877.
There are a surprising number of high rise condos, especially considering the area has bad earthquakes. There was a 7.8 in 2005 that destroyed a lot of the town and a 2014 8.1 quake that destroyed the road out of town.
The road starts climbing up to the desert, passing the 2.5 km long ridged sand dune known as Cerro Dragon, Dragon sanctuary. The sand was used to make porcelain, but the dune is now protected.
Once up in the desert, the road passes a couple of old silver mines with pink coloured hills, they finished before the nitrate mining started. There was a train serving the nitrate mines, started 1871(?). Lots of shrines along the road and there is also a wire fence the whole length, to mark concessions. It is now a toll road.
46 km from Iquique is the old mining town of Santa Laura. Today you can walk around the old nitrate workings – processing plant, smokestacks, administration building and warehouse. 1000 workers were here and there were 7 water wells.
This shows the process of leaching -
Caliche is a mineral deposit of gravel, sand, and nitrates, found in dry areas of America. The caliche is leached with water and then the solution was crystallized by cooling or evaporation.
The tall chimney spewed out white vaporous steam from the boilers.
The offices and store etc -
From Santa Laura, we drove over to the much larger Humberstone. This started 1872, then closed, and reopened 1934. With modernisation it became the most successful of the saltpetre works in 1940. It was abandoned in 1960.
It was originally known as La Palma and about 3500 people lived there in its heyday. It must have been a terrible job working there in the heat of the desert. Gangs of men dug out the caliche which was ground down in crushers, then dissolved in large boilers and the nitrate of soda extracted from the tanks.
The tourist area is mostly the old town buildings such as the general store, chapel, theatre with seats still in place, hotel and full sized swimming pool. Entry is about £7.50.
The chapel and swimming pool -
The old workings are off limits to tourists -
In 2005 Humberstone and Santa Laura were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. There is a lot more detailed information on the UNESCO page.
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