The
country is stretched on 4.265 km of north in the south. Chile
has a maximum width hardly 349 km at Antofagasta, and becomes
only one narrow strip of land of a little more than 15 km
with Puerto Natales, completely in the south of Chile.
The surface of the Chilien territory is of 756.945 km².
The country divides a very long border with Argentina in the
east and of shorter borders with Bolivia in the North-East
and Peru in north. Its littoral, which almost entirely borders
the Pacific Ocean, but including one short portion gives all
the same on the Atlantic, posts impressive a 5338 km length.
The most beautiful tops of Chile are those of two extinguished
volcanos, Ojos del Salado, which culminates 6.893m, and high
Llullaillaco of 6 723m.
The territory associates a certain number of more or less
large islands, of which most strongly populated is Chiloé.
With good distance in the Pacific the legendary Easter Island
is, that Chile adapted itself at the same time as several
small Polynésiennes islands.
POPULATION
Chile counted 13,8 million inhabitants in 1993, date on which
one estimated that the population would reach 15,2 million
in 2000.
Approximately 70% of Chilean are of semi-Amerindian semi-European
descent, about 20% of them are of primarily European descent
and some 10% rather of Amerindian descent. Other components,
altogether negligible, are due to layers Polynesian (especially
on the Easter Island), means-Eastern, Asian and African.
Among those which belong to the still existing Amerindian
cultures, the great majority are of Mapuches, they live for
the majority in the surroundings of Temuco, in the center-south
of Chile. In the highlands of North, there is also a restricted
number of Aymarás, bound of close with groups living
on the other side of the Bolivian border.
In the last half of the 19éme century, there was a
light surge of immigrants come from southernmost and central
Europe (many Germans were established in the area of the lakes,
in the south of Chile).
With the whole beginning of the 20éme century, small
groups of Croats moreover settled in the extreme south of
the country, joined by stockbreeders and owners of English
ranch.
The culture euro-hispanique crushed the indigenous culture
in a more complete way in Chile than in the majority of the
other countries of Latin America. It results from it that
Chile counts among the most Europeanized Latin-American countries.
It also counts among most educated (to 95%) and the most urbanized
(to 86%).
Roman Catholicism is essential like the dominant religion,
although the Protestant missionaries marked important progress.
The small Jewish population is for its part strongly comparable.
