CHILE

Capital: Santiago, 5,333,100 (metro. area)

Monetary unit: Chilean Peso

Population: 16,284,741 (growth rate: 0.9%); birth rate: 15.0/1000; infant mortality rate: 8.4/1000; life expectancy: 77.0; density per sq mi: 56

Language: Spanish

Geography: Situated south of Peru and west of Bolivia and Argentina, Chile fills a narrow 2,880-mi (4,506 km) strip between the Andes and the Pacific. One-third of Chile is covered by the towering ranges of the Andes. In the north is the driest place on Earth, the Atacama Desert, and in the center is a 700-mile-long (1,127 km) thickly populated valley with most of Chile's arable land. At the southern tip of Chile's mainland is Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in the world, and beyond that lies the Strait of Magellan and Tierra del Fuego, an island divided between Chile and Argentina. The southernmost point of South America is Cape Horn, a 1,390-foot (424 m) rock on Horn Island in the Wollaston group, which belongs to Chile. Chile also claims sovereignty over 482,628 sq mi (1,250,000 sq km) of Antarctic territory; the Juan Fernandez Islands, about 400 mi (644 km) west of the mainland; and Easter Island, about 2,000 mi (3,219 km) west.

Climate: Chile is a remarkably-shaped country, extending 2600 miles between 22 and 55 degrees south, but having an average breadth of between 100 and 200 miles. The east of the country is very mountainous, with peaks up to 16000 feet. South of Santiago the mountains are lower and more broken, but the whole country is rugged with hundreds of small offshore islands.

Much of Chile therefore has a mountain climate with perpetual snow and glaciers. Precipitation is light in the northern mountains, and so the snowline is high. Away from the mountains, the north is a desert. Most of the population lives in the lowlands of Central Chile, whilst the southern part of the country is rugged and densely forested with a cool wet changeable climate.

Northern Chile is one of the world's driest regions. Here, despite being almost rainless, the weather is often cloudy and cool. Annual average rainfall totals can be as low as 14 mm. Average daily maximum temperatures range from 17 °C (63 °F) in July to 28 °C (82 °F) in March. Central Chile has a Mediterranean climate with warm and virtually rainless summers, whilst the winters are mild and moderately wet. Frost and snow occasionally occur inland, but are rare on the coast. At Santiago, daily average sunshine hours range from 3 in June and July to 11 in January and the daily average maximum temperatures range from 14 °C (58 °F) in June to 29 °C (85 °F) in January. Southern Chile tends to be wet all year round, featuring frequent disturbed, changeable weather. Annual precipitation can be as high as 5000 mm (200") much of which falls as snow farther south and on the higher mountains. On the coast, winters are rarely very cold, but summers are cool and cloudy.

Culture: Surrounded on three sides by virtually impassable barriers, Chile's rich central valley remained largely unknown to the outside world until the middle of the fifteenth century, when the Incas began their great conquests of much of the continent.  Under Tupac Yupanqui, an Inca army succeeded in crossing the six hundred mile string of salt basins that are the Atacama Desert, moving from oasis to oasis in a region so dry that some parts of it show no evidence of ever having been rained upon.  After coming at last into the central valley, the Incas encountered the Mapuche, one of the three Araucanian peoples who occupied the region.

The invading army seemed at first to be enjoying the same success that the Incas were experiencing all over South America, and they advanced about half way down the valley's five hundred mile length. However, the Incas soon found that they had met their match in the Mapuche, who decisively defeated the Incan attempt to cross over the Rio Maule into the Lake District.  The Incas established a stable presence in the territory they had gained, but they did not see fit to pursue the redoubtable Mapuche any further. Less than a century later, a Spanish army attempted to do just that. In 1541, Pedro de Valdavia crossed into the central valley, having followed the Inca road south from Peru. He founded Santiago in February, and soon afterward crossed into Mapuche domains and established strongholds there. In 1553, in a gesture no doubt familiar to the Spaniard Valdavia, they bound him to a tree and beheaded him.

For the next four hundred years the Spanish, like the Incas before them, found it appropriate to maintain a massive defensive presence in the central valley. During these centuries the regions under Spanish control were permitted to trade directly with Peru: smuggling flourished, and privateers swarmed along the coasts. Chile gained its independence from Spain in 1817, after seven years of warfare. The Mapuche region to the south, which had remained largely independent of Spanish rule, also resisted the new Chilean government. Capable of marshalling full cavalry forces and even modern artillery, the Mapuche succeeded in holding onto their autonomy until the middle of the century, when large numbers of armed settlers gradually moved into the region. Although Chile's war of independence brought into place a system of representative democracy, the country's political history has not always been smooth. In 1970, a Marxist government under Dr. Salvador Allende came to power, having responded to the perceived failure of the established liberal party. Allende's attempts to radically change the structure and direction of the country brought about a second political crisis however, and in 1973 a right-wing government under General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte seized power with assistance from the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Allende was killed in the coup, and Pinochet's government maintained power for the next decade and a half, frequently resorting to terror in order to stifle discontent. In 1990, having failed in his bid to gain popular ratification for his rule, Pinochet handed over the presidency to the rightfully- elected Patricio Aylwin Azocar. Chile's political climate has since remained stable, although there is still considerable tension between the military and the government concerning the human rights violations of the Pinochet era. Chile's population is composed predominantly of mestizo, who is descended from marriage between the Spanish colonizers and the indigenous people. The surviving indigenous groups consist of the Aymara, in the north, and the Mapuche, who number roughly 100,000 and continue to inhabit the forested areas of the Lake District. Chile is also home to a number of significant immigrant groups, including minority populations from virtually every European country. There are significant numbers of Basques and Palestinians. The high proportion of mestizo among Chile's people has made race a minor issue in comparison to class, which continues to be a source of considerable tension. The great majority of Chile's people, as one might expect, are concentrated in the central valley. Spanish is the country's official language, but some of the Indian dialects remain. In the north, they speak Aymara, in the south Mapuche, and on Easter Island the Polynesian language of Rapa Nui.

Gastronomy: In Chile it is usual to have three or four meals a day, with lunch being the main one, normally taken between 1 - 2.30.  Typical Chilean food is pretty simple and simply seasoned. Some of our important dishes are empanadas, corn pies, corn cakes, beans, and curanto, but perhaps our most delicious is our seafood. Abalones, razor clams, mussels, spider crabs, oysters, conger eels, salmon, corbinas and sole are among the wealth of fresh seafood captured along the 4,000km length of our shoreline.  Chile’s wines and fruit have also developed an international reputation, and are produced mainly in the country's highly fertile central zone. Our vineyards are now challenging the more established players in the wine industry, providing fresh and modern flavors for the rest of the world. Aside from wine, our traditional spirit is 'Pisco', mixed with egg white, lemon juice and sugar to form the ubiquitous 'Pisco sour.'  In Santiago there is a huge variety of interesting restaurants at a range of prices; from Mexican and Peruvian to sushi and Middle Eastern and, of course, fast food. In other regions, however, there is not such a variety: here, Chilean, Chinese and Italian foods are the most common.