The Puna de Atacama dispute (sometimes referred to as Puna de Atacama Lawsuit) (Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

: Litigio de la Puna de Atacama) was a border dispute involving Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

 and Bolivia

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

 in the 19th century over the arid high plateau of Puna de Atacama

Puna de Atacama

The Puna de Atacama or Atacama Plateau is an arid high plateau averaging about above sea level and spanning an area of , in the Andes of northern Chile and Argentina and southwest Bolivia. Before the War of the Pacific , the region belonged to Bolivia. In 1898 it was ceded to Argentina in...

 located about 4500 m.a.s.l. around the current borders of the three countries.

The dispute originated with the Chilean annexation of the Bolivian Litoral Department

Antofagasta Region

The II Antofagasta Region is one of Chile's fifteen first-order administrative divisions. It comprises three provinces, Antofagasta, El Loa and Tocopilla...

 in 1879 during the War of the Pacific

War of the Pacific

The War of the Pacific took place in western South America from 1879 through 1883. Chile fought against Bolivia and Peru. Despite cooperation among the three nations in the war against Spain, disputes soon arose over the mineral-rich Peruvian provinces of Tarapaca, Tacna, and Arica, and the...

. In 1879 the Chilean Army

Chilean Army

The Chilean Army is the land arm of the Military of Chile. This 45,000-person army is organized into seven divisions, a special operations brigade and an air brigade....

 occupied San Pedro de Atacama

San Pedro de Atacama

San Pedro de Atacama is a Chilean town and commune in El Loa Province, Antofagasta Region. It is located east of Antofagasta, some 106 km southeast of Calama and the Chuquicamata copper mine, overlooking the Licancabur volcano. It features a significant archeological museum, the R. P...

 the main settlement of the current Chilean part of Puna de Atacama. By 1884 Bolivia and its ally Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

 had lost the war and Argentina communicated to the Chilean Government that the border line in the Puna was still a pending issue between Argentina and Bolivia. Chile answered that the Puna de Atacama still belonged to Bolivia. The same year Argentina occupied Pastos Grandes

Santa Rosa de los Pastos Grandes

Santa Rosa de los Pastos Grandes is a village and rural municipality in Salta Province in northwestern Argentina.-References:...

 in the Puna.

Bolivia had still did not signed any peace treaty with Chile until the Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1904. In the light that influential Bolivian politicians considered the Litoral Province lost for ever, the adjacent Puna de Atacama appeared to be a remote, mountainous and arid place difficult to defend. This prompted the Bolivian government to use it as a tool for to obtaining benefits from both Chile and Argentina. This led to the signature of two contradictory treaties in which Bolivia granted Argentina and Chile overlapping areas. The treaties were the following:

• On May 10, 1889 a secret treaty between the Argentine minister Norberto Quirno Costa and the Bolivian envoy Santiago Vaca Guzmán was signed in Buenos Aires
  Buenos Aires
  Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
  
  . The treaty established that Argentina renounced to its claims on Tarija
  Tarija Department
  Tarija is a department in Bolivia. It is located in south-eastern Bolivia bordering Argentina to the south and Paraguay to the east. According to the 2001 census, it has a population of 391,226 inhabitants. It has an area of 37.623 km²...
  
   in exchange of all the Bolivian Puna de Atacama.

• On May 19, 1891, the Matta-Reyes Protocol was signed between Chile and Bolivia. This protocol recognised the Bolivian territories occupied by Chile since the War of the Pacific as ceded to Chile, including those in the Puna de Atacama, in exchange of defaulting some debts.

On November 2, 1898, Argentina and Chile signed two documents where they decided to convene a conference to define the border in Buenos Aires with delegates of both countries. If there was no accord, a Chilean and Argentine delegate plus the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 minister to Argentina William Buchanan

William Buchanan

William Buchanan was a politician in Manitoba, Canada. He served in the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 1914 to 1915, as a member of the Conservative Party....

 would decide. As foreseen there was no accord at the conference and William Buchanan proceeded together with the Chilean delegate Enrique McIver and the Argentine one José Evaristo Uriburu

José Evaristo Uriburu

José Evaristo de Uriburu y Álvarez de Arenales was President of Argentina from 23 January 1895 to 12 October 1898....

to define the border.

Of the 75,000 km² in dispute 64,000 (85%) were awarded to Argentina and 11,000 (15%) to Chile.