of arsenic, mercury, cadmium and lead, outside of Arica. Boliden paid a local company, Promel Ltda., the equivalent of $1.2 million ($3.15 million in 2021 dollars) to receive, treat and confine the waste. The toxic waste - which remains outdoors, uncovered and exposed to nature's elements - poses a health and security risk including to drinking water systems, given its high content of arsenic. In 2013, 796 Arica residents, including human rights defenders, started legal action in Sweden against Boliden. The Court of Appeal for Northern Norrland held that the claims of the victims were time limited, and the Swedish Supreme Court declined to hear the case. Demography According to the 2017 census by the National Statistics Institute, Arica spans an area of and has 222,619 inhabitants (110,115 men and 112,504 women). The population grew by 20% (37,351 people) between the 2002 and 2017 censuses. Arica is home to 97.7% of the total population of the region. The population of Arica is made up of various long-established groups in the region, and other more recent arrivals settled at differing times. Among the long-established groups, the oldest consists of indigenous Amerindians, such as the Aymara, whose presence in the region is of several millennia. These are followed by the second oldest, the local colonial-era groups, which includes local mestizos (of mixed Spanish-Amerindian origin), local criollos (whites of colonial Spanish origin), and local afrodescendants of colonial-era slaves. The third oldest group consists of early post-colonial Chinese Chileans who first arrived as miners and rail workers in the 1890s. These long-established groups of Ariqueños have been augmented by various later settlers, mostly other criollos and mestizo Chileans from elsewhere around Chile, but also numerous Europeans, who arrived in the 1900s, including more Spaniards arriving from Spain, as well as Italians, Greeks, British, and French. These arrived at different times during the last century. Some Ariqueños, primarily the indigenous Amerindians, but also the afro-descendants, share cultural affinities to counterpart populations in neighbouring border areas of Peru, and more distantly, Bolivia. The urban area of Arica has 175,441 inhabitants in an area of 41.89 km2. Arica in 2007 had more than 185,000 inhabitants (not counting the inhabitants of the valleys and Lluta Azapa, with that reach almost to the 194.000 inhabitants). The growing city of Arica spreads outward into the desert and the Peru-Chile border. The Azapa Valley has developed a year-round agricultural economy due