Santiago

Concepciòn

Valparaiso

Valparaiso is a city and seaport, and the third largest metropolitan area in Chile.  In the nineteenth century, it served as a major stopping point for ships crossing the Straits of Magellan to go between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  European immigrants were also attracted to the city during its golden age, as it was known as “Little San Francisco” and “The Jewel of the Pacific.” The city is home to Latin America’s oldest stock exchange, Chile’s first volunteer fire department, and Chile’s first public library.  The oldest Spanish-language newspaper still in publication around the world, El Mercurio de Valparaiso, is based out of the city as well.

Cape Horn

Cape Horn is a piece of land located on Hornos Island in Southern Chile. It was discovered by Dutch sailors in 1616. The Atlantic, Pacific, and Southern Oceans all meet at Cape Horn, causing the waters surrounding it to have treacherous, stormy conditions including strong winds and waves as high as ten-story buildings. The sailing route around Cape Horn was a crucial passageway for international trade, especially in the 1800s. Between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, at least 800 shipwrecks were recorded along Cape Horn.

Today, the Cape Horn Monument, built in 1992, honors those who lost their lives trying to cross the path through Cape Horn. The monument itself features an artistic depiction of an albatross in flight. An albatross is a sea bird that typically flies tens of thousnds of miles on the open ocean in its lifetime

Torres del Paine National Park

Torres del Paine National Park in southern Chile features mountains, glaciers, and lakes. The center of the park is the Cordillera Paine, a group of mountains that connects the subpolar forests and Patagonian Desert. The park is one of the largest and most-visited in Chile, and averages over 250,000 visitors a year, over half of which are foreign tourists. The park is named for three granite mountain peaks from the Paine mountain range that rise up to 2,500 meters above sea level.

Isla Magdalena National Park

Andes Mountains

The Andes make up the world’s longest continental mountain range. The range stretches 4,300 miles in length, 430 miles in width, with an average height of about 13,000 feet. The Andes extend through Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. The mountains are separated into three divisions based on their climate: the Tropical Andes, the Dry Andes, and the Wet Andes. The Andes are part of the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges that make an almost continuous line of mountains that form the western “backbone” of North, Central, South America and Antarctica.

Strait of Magellan

Atacama Desert

The Atacama Desert is the driest place on Earth. It is the only desert to receive less rain, snow, sleet, or hail than the polar deserts. The topography of the desert includes salt lakes, sand, stones, and felsic lava and molten rock flowing towards the Andes area. The cold Humboldt ocean current, a cold north-flowing stream of water on South America’s west coast, causes a temperature inversion that accounts for the desert’s extremely dry conditions. The driest part of the desert is located between the Andes and Chilean Coast mountain regions, where moisture is unable to permeate the height of the mountains.

• Chile is home to the world’s largest swimming pool, located in the city of Algarrobo at the San Alfonso del Mar Resort. It is 1,000 yards long, 20 acres wide, and has a maximum depth of 115 feet.
• The Atacama Desert, the driest place on Earth, is located in Chile. Parts of this desert have never received a single drop of rain.
• Easter Island, a mysterious island home to a crop of 900 face-like statues called moai, is located in Chile.
• The oldest mummy in the world, a child and a Chinchorro mummy, was found in the Camarones Valley in Chile in 5050 BC.
• Chile is the world’s longest country from north to south, coming in at 4,620 kilometers, or 2,647 miles, long. However, it is only 150 kilometers, or 93 miles, wide from west to east.
• About 80% of Chile is covered by the Andes Mountains. Because of this, a mere 3.8% of Chile’s land is farmable.
• Chile is home to about 90 active volcanoes, as well as to the world’s highest historically active volcano: Ojos del Salado.
• The Fiestas Patrias, occurring on the 18th and 19th of September, are an official celebration of Chile’s independence. During the celebrations, all public buildings are required by law to display the flag of Chile.
• Chile is known as pais de poetas: the country of poets. The country boasts two Nobel Prize winners in Literature: Gabriela Mistral in 1945, and Pablo Neruda in 1971.
• Chile was the last country in the entire Western Hemisphere to legalize divorce, doing so in 2004.