Arica
a seaport of Tacna, the most southerly department of Peru. It is one of the chief outlets of the trade of Bolivia, and has been connected since 1854, by rail, with Tacna, 38 miles inland.
Its exports mostly consist of copper, silver, cascarilla and other barks, chinchilla skins, alpaca, and vicuna wool. Arica has frequently suffered from earthquakes. It was almost wholly destroyed in 1832, but soon rebuilt. It suffered severely again in 1868, the earthquake being succeeded by fearful waves, one of them 40 feet high. In the time of the Spanish supremacy, Arica was a great commercial city with 30,000 inhabitants; its present population is about 5,000. It was stormed and taken by the Chileans in 1880. For details of the longstanding dispute between Chile and Peru for the possession of Arica and Tacna see CHILE and PERU.
ARIÈGE (ar-yāzh), a mountainous department of France, on the slopes of the Pyrenees, comprising the ancient countship of Foix and parts of Languedoc and Gascony. The principal rivers are the Ariège, Arize, and Salat, tributaries of the Garonne. Sheep and cattle are reared; the arable land is small in quantity. Chief town, Foix. Area 1,890 square miles; pop. about 200,000.