Mocha Island is a small Chilean island located west of the coast of Arauco Province in the Pacific Ocean. The island is approximately 48 km2 (19 sq mi) in area, with a small chain of mountains running roughly in north-south direction. In Mapuche mythology, the souls of dead people travel west to visit this island. The island today is home to the Mocha Island National Reserve, a nature reserve that covers approximately 45% of the island's surface. The island is noted as the location of numerous historic shipwrecks. The waters off the island are a popular place for recreational sea fishing.
Purén is a city and commune in Malleco Province of La Araucanía Region, Chile. It is located in the west base of the Nahuelbuta mountain range. The economical activity of Purén is based in forest exploitation and agriculture. The most characteristic product of Purén is the white strawberry which is one of two species of strawberry that were hybridized to create the modern garden strawberry.
Arauco is a city and commune in Chile, located in Arauco Province in the Bío Bío Region. The meaning of Arauco means Chalky Water in Mapudungun. The region was a Moluche aillarehue. The Spanish settlements founded here during the Conquest of Chile were destroyed on numerous occasions by the Mapuche during the Arauco War.
Santa Cruz de Óñez was a fort founded by Martín García Óñez de Loyola in May 1594, near the confluence of the Bio-Bio and Laja Rivers on the right bank of the upper reach of the Rele River in Catiray, ten kilometers south of the Bio-Bio. The site was in an elevated location but with a shortage of water. Gold mines were located across the Rele on a stream called Millapoa.
Quiapo is a place in Arauco Province of Chile that is 25 kilometers to the southwest of Arauco and about 25 kilometers to the north and east of the port of Lebu to the east of the Bahia del Carnero and 6.4 kilometers west of the small town of Villa Alegre. It was a low mountainous and thickly wooded area, that contained among its contours arable lands that had the same name. It is also the location where two streams come together to form the headwaters of the Quiapo River.
Quiapo River is a short river of small volume that is in Arauco Province near its coast. Its headwaters are formed at the junction of two steams at the heights of Quiapo. These streams arise in the forested heights to the north and east some kilometers south of Arauco. It flows into the Bahia del Carnero north of Lebu.
Catirai or Catiray is the region of the Moluche Aillarehue of Catiray in old Araucanía. It is now the Santa Juana commune of the Concepción Province and the Nacimiento commune of the Bío Bío Province of the Bío Bío Region, of Chile. It includes the eastern slope of the mountains of the Nahuelbuta Range in its northern extremity where they descend toward the valley of the Biobío River and that contains the sources of the streams that flow into the Culenco River,. Below the Tavolevo they flow directly into the Biobío. First the Rele River, then the riachuelos of Patagual and Pilún, Estero Huedilhue and the riachuelos of Pileo and Tricauco. Catiray comes from the Mapudungun callyíi, to cut, and of raigheii, the flower of the trees, meaning short flowers.
Pilmaiquén or Pilmayquen is a riachuelo in the commune of Cañete in Arauco Province in the Bío Bío Region of Chile that flows southwest towards the coast of the Pacific Ocean, to the northwest of the city of Cañete. Its course is short but of great volume and traverses a small valley between wooded mountainous areas where it joins the Licauquén River. This valley was a Moluche rehue of the Tucapel aillarehue and the homeland of the Toqui Caupolicán who commanded the Mapuche in the first revolt against domination by the Spanish Empire.
Cayucupil is a valley, a hamlet and a riachuelo or small river in the vicinity of Cañete, Chile of the Arauco Province of the Bío Bío Region that has its origin in the western foothills of the Nahuelbuta Mountains, to the east of that city. It runs to the southwest from among broken and mountainous land, and then to the west through more level ground to join with the Tucapel River about five kilometers to southwest of the site that the original city of Cañete occupied. In its upper part is a passage that traverses the mountain range. Its name derives from the Mapudungun cayu six and quypil, frame of a house. It was a Moluche rehue of the Tucapel aillarehue.
Carampangue River is a small river in Arauco Province, Bío Bío Region of Chile. It has its main source in the hill of la Piedra, South of the Heights of Purgatorio in the Nahuelbuta Range southwest of the town of Santa Juana, and it runs to the Northwest to empty into the Bay of Arauco north of Arauco, Chile. In its upper half it receives several streams from the forests of the Nahuelbuta Range that flow shortly after into a lower section that traverses a fertile and open valley, in which the Pedro de Valdivia's fort of San Felipe de Rauco or Old Arauco was first built, and the town of this name that was on the north shore. Its main tributaries are the riachuelos of Conumo and of Los Patos. In the lowest reach of the river it has about 12 to 14 kilometers that allows the navigation of small boats.
Tirúa is a Chilean commune and town in Arauco Province, Biobío Region. The 2010 Chile earquake led to a permanent uplift of Tirúa of about 180 cm above sea level, the highest recorded uplift related to the earthquake. This caused a large islet to form at the mouth of Tirúa River next to the town.
Tavolevo River, a tributary of the Biobío River. in Chile. It has two tributaries the Culenco River flowing southeast from the Nahuelbuta Range in the Catirai region and the Nicodahue River that flows north from the La Araucanía Region and its two tributaries the Esperanza and Maitenrehue Rivers that all originate northwest of Angol. It is sometimes considered part of the Nicodahue River. The Tavolevo flows into the Bio Bio fifty kilometers beyond the confluence of the Nicodahue and Culenco Rivers and seven kilometers to the north of Nacimiento. Immediately downstream from its mouth was the location of the old fort of Espirito Santo and on its banks significant placer gold deposits. The river was navigable by flatboats up to nine kilometers above its confluence with the Bio Bio. Its Mapudungun name meant confluence.
Bahía del Carnero is a cove with little shelter on the coast of the Arauco Province, Bío Bío Region, Chile to the south of the Punta de Lavapié and north of Lebu at 37° 25' S. At its northern end it contains the mouth of Caleta Yani 37°22′17.54″S73°39′58.96″W and at the southern end, the Caleta Ranquil where it is protected by the promontory of Millonhue. Its coast is low and little forested, and drains the Quiapo River.
Culenco a river of moderate volume that runs from the southern part of the commune of Santa Juana, through the northwestern part of the commune of Nacimiento to its confluence with the Nicodahue River. It has origins in streams from the eastern slopes of the Nahuelbuta Range in the Catirai region to the south of the town of Santa Juana, where it unites several streams from that side of that forested mountain range, and goes towards the southeast to join with the Nicodahue River after a course of more than 35 kilometers, to form the Tavolevo River about seven kilometers from the confluence of the Tavolevo with the Bio Bio River. In its lower part it is more open and fertile. Among the valleys and gorges of its upper part existed some indigenous populations in the early period of the Arauco War, and the fort of San Jerónimo de Millapoa was built there to control them in 1585.
Santa Cruz de Coya was a city established by the governor of Chile Martín García Oñez de Loyola on the site of the fort of Santa Cruz de Oñez, in 1595. It was named for his wife Beatriz Clara Coya, a member of the royal Incan house. The Mapuche called the city Millacoya, meaning gold princess from the mapudungun milla, gold and the quechua coya, princess.
Licauquén River a short river or riachuelo south of Lebu and west of Cañete. It comes from the eastern wooded heights of the Arauco Province to the coast of the Pacific Ocean, it is joined in its upper reaches by a tributary riachuelo named Pilmaiquén and it runs a few kilometers to the southwest to end on the coast at 37° 50' Lat. South, nearby Punta Molguilla.
Talcamávida is a town in the commune of Hualqui in the Biobío Region of Chile. It is located on the north bank of the Bio Bio River across from Santa Juana on the opposite shore. It occupied a plain along the river 42 kilometers from the Pacific Ocean that is part of a small valley surrounded by to the north by a high wooded mountainous area. It is 40 kilometers from Yumbel, to the east northeast, 24 km from Hualqui and 47 km from Concepcion to the north.
Fort Colcura was a small fort that was the first Spanish settlement that existed in the commune of Lota, Chile. It was on a small height on the edge of the Bay of Arauco, a little more than two kilometers to the southeast of the modern city of Lota. From its position it dominated the north slope of cerro Marihueñu and the valley of Colcura in whose extreme west is the mouth of the riachuelo Colcura that empties into the cove of Colcura.
Rele River is a river in the commune of Santa Juana. It has its origin to the south southeast of Santa Juana, from where it runs to the northeast from among the slopes of the heights of the Nahuelbuta Range and runs to the east to the Bio Bio River in which it empties a little above the confluence with the Laja River. It a river with a small volume and its course is 20 kilometers long. It has a tributary that joins it from the south, the Riachuelo Millapoa or de las Minas from the gold mines that in the sixteenth century were worked on its banks. Immediately on the north bank of the Rele River from the Millapoa was the location of the old city of Santa Cruz de Coya. At the mouth of the river was the old fort and town of Monterrey de la Frontera. A small town of Monterey now exists nearby. The Mapudungun name comes from the verb relen, “to face up”.
Quilacoya River is located in the Hualqui commune of Concepcion Province of Chile. It has course of about 40 kilometers with a small volume. It originates in the southern slopes of the series of heights of Lucay that run from east to west in the southern part of the commune of Florida. It runs to the southwest to join the Bío Bío River on the North bank nine kilometers above the town of Hualqui.
