River · Chile
Loa River
The Loa River is the longest river in Chile and the only large river in the Atacama Desert. It winds through sand and stone and flows into the Pacific Ocean at Caleta Huelen.
Picture credit: Jose luis Rojas 1 (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Norteextremo kayak (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is the Loa River?
The river starts here: Andes near the Miño volcano, northern Chile.
It ends in the Pacific Ocean at Caleta Huelen.
Countries on the river: Chile.
The story behind it
The Loa flows through the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth, where rain may not fall for years. Its course looks like a giant letter U: it runs south from the Andes, then turns west to the sea. Along its banks lie green oases with fields of maize and alfalfa, and old villages such as Quillagua, where people have farmed the same soil for centuries. The mining town of Calama grew up beside the river, and the huge copper mines nearby need water from it every day. Because so much water is taken out, the lower Loa is often thin and salty, and in some years it barely reaches the Pacific at all. Flamingos, wild ducks and small fish still live in the marshes, and farmers guard every drop the river brings.
Questions children ask
How long is the Loa River?
The Loa River is about 440 km long. That makes it the longest river in Chile, even though it crosses a desert.
Which country does the Loa River flow through?
The Loa River flows only through Chile, in the north of the country. It rises in the Andes and crosses the Atacama Desert from end to end.
Where does the Loa River flow into the sea?
It reaches the Pacific Ocean at Caleta Huelen on the Chilean coast. In dry years so little water is left that the mouth almost falls dry.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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