In 1904 an official estimate made the population 2,181,415, also including the Litoral (59,784), but of course all census returns and estimates in such a country are subject to many allowances.
Up to 1879 the province belonged to Bolivia, and was known as the department of Atacama, or the Litoral.
A roughly-taken census of 1900 gives the total population as 1,816,271, including the Litoral department, now belonging to Chile (49,820), and estimates the number of wild Indians of the forest regions at 91,000.