Iquitos
[key], city, capital of Loreto dept., NE Peru, on the Amazon River,
c.2,300 mi (3,700 km) from the Amazon's mouth. It is the farthest inland
port of any considerable size in the world. With the boom in wild rubber at
the beginning of the 20th cent. the city gained prominence, but it declined
after the collapse of the market. Today coffee, cotton, timber,
balatá, and tagua nuts, as well as rubber, are exported. There is
launch service some distance up the Marañón and Ucayali rivers
and air service to the highlands, but the Andes Mts. are so formidable a
barrier to the transport of most commercial goods that Iquitos has been
oriented toward the Atlantic rather than the Pacific. The city was founded
in 1863.
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