Pucallpa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Pucallpa (Quechua: "red earth") is a busy Amazon frontier town in Peru which sits on the banks of the Ucayali River, a major tributary which feeds the Amazon River. Pucallpa is the capital of the Ucayali region and has more than 200,000 citizens.

Pucallpa was founded on October 13, 1888, though a small community had existed on the site since 1534.

Prior the completion of the 846km long Lima-Pucallpa highway in 1945, Pucallpa was a small, isolated town without electricity or paved roads. Today, however, the city has grown greatly in size and is a centre for local agriculture and industry, with numerous sawmills, rosewood oil factories and farms in its vicinity. Pucallpa is also the terminus for a 76km long oil pipeline from the Ganso Azul oilfields in the southwest.

The Alexander von Humboldt and Biabo-Cordillera Azul National Forests are located just to the west of Pucallpa.

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