La Rinconada

La Rinconada in Peru is an old gold-mining camp in the remote Peruvian Andes that has grown to ‘major city’ status. Over 50,000 people live in this mountainous city at an altitude of 16,732 ft or 5,100 m. It lays claim to the title of the ‘highest city in the world’. Despite having an economy fuelled almost entirely by the nearby gold mine, its infrastructure remains poor. The city has no plumbing and no sanitation system, and there is significant contamination with mercury due to mining practices.

Almost all the residents of this city are workers who emigrated to the remote location hoping to secure work and stake their claim in the riches. They work through a peculiar system of payment called cachorreo. Employees work for 30 days without payment, and on the 31st day, they are allowed to take as much ore from the mine as they can carry. Whatever the miners are able to extract from that ore is theirs. Despite companies utilising such a non-traditional system of payment, miners continue to flock to the region. The population of La Rinconada has skyrocketed over 230% in the last decade.