Villa Rica District is one of eight districts of Oxapampa Province in Pasco Department, Peru. The district has an area of and a population of 18,673 in 2017. The capital of the district is the town of Villa Rica which had a population of 11,900 in 2017. The district is the location of the Cerro de la Sal or Salt Mountain, an important gathering place for indigenous people of the region and a center of Franciscan missionary activity from the 17th to 19th century. The town was founded in 1928 by settlers of German and Austrian origin from the town of Pozuzo. The District of Villa Rica is on the eastern slopes of the Andes mountains in an area of abundant rainfall and mild temperatures. It is located in the ecological zone of the Peruvian Yungas, or :es:Selva Alta|Ceja de Selva, the transition zone between the low jungles of the Amazon Basin and the Andes highlands. Elevations in the district range from about to about. Where not cleared for agriculture, the vegetation is tropical and sub-tropical forests.
The Cerro de la Sal is located about north of the town of Villa Rica at. In pre-Columbian and colonial Peru the indigenous people exploited the salt and transported it downriver by raft to a large number of peoples in the Amazon Basin. The Cerro de la Sal was in the territory of the Asháninka and was also a source of salt by the Amuesha. The Spanish realized the strategic importance of the Cerro de la Sal early in the 17th century. Roman Catholic Franciscan missionaries were attracted to the Cerro de la Sal because of the seasonal congregation of large numbers of indigenous people there. A large number of Christian missions collectively called the Cerro de la Sal missions were established in the region. In 1742, a messianic movement headed by Juan Santos Atahualpa emptied the missions and the Spanish were expelled from Cerro de la Sal for 100 years. In the late 19th and early 20th century settlers of European and Andean origin dispossessed the indigenous people.
Climate
Villa Rica has a Af climate under the Koppen Classification system. However, the climate borders on Aw and Cfb Measured by the Trewartha climate classification system the climate is Arbb. Villa Rica's climate is modified by its altitude which results in lower average temperatures year than low-elevation tropics. The monthly deviation in average temperatures between the hottest and coldest months is only 1.8 degrees C. The austral winter months of June and July are fairly dry, but precipitation is abundant during the remainder of the year.
