Concepción — Concepción Map Poster & Print

الخريطة

Concepción Map Poster & Print

Concepción sits just inland from the Pacific, where the Biobío River runs toward the sea. It is one of the widest rivers in Chile. On a map the city centre is a regular grid of square blocks around the Plaza de la Independencia, and the wooded ridge of Cerro Caracol rises sharply along its eastern edge. Several bridges cross the river to San Pedro de la Paz, and their long spans show as fine lines over open water.

The present city is not the original one. Concepción was founded at Penco on the bay to the north. In the mid-eighteenth century, after earthquakes and tsunamis destroyed that first site, it moved inland to the Valle de la Mocha. The Plaza de la Independencia takes its name from the proclamation of Chilean independence read there in 1818, and the grid still spreads outward from that square in every direction.

A Concepción map poster picks up details that are easy to miss at street level. Small lagoons such as Las Tres Pascualas sit among the blocks. The University of Concepción campus spreads green toward the hills. Rail lines and avenues tie the city to Talcahuano and the port towns along the coast. In black and white, the river and the ridge frame everything else.