Chile
Chile (officially Republic of Chile) is a country in South America, with its capital at Santiago, and is home to roughly 19.8M people.
Spanish is the official language; the currency in circulation is Chilean peso ($); people from here are called Chilean.
- »The Atacama Desert is the driest non-polar place on Earth; some weather stations have never recorded rain.
- »Chile stretches over 4,000 km north to south but averages under 180 km wide.
Its territory comes in pieces: one mainland carrying 90% of the area, plus two further landmasses large enough to show up at map scale.
It straddles the Tropic of Capricorn.
Chile touches three neighbours: Argentina to the east, Bolivia to the north and Peru to the north. Directions run from one centre to the other.
Santiago sits in a basin with the Andes rising sharply to its east, so on clear days the city has a wall of 5,000 m peaks at the end of its streets.
738,652 km² (285,195 sq mi), 38th largest of 198 countries and territories on file, almost exactly the size of Zambia.
Population 19,764,771, 66th of 198 on file. That averages 27 per km² (69 per sq mi).
The lone star gives it the nickname La Estrella Solitaria. Blue for the sky, white for the snows of the Andes, red for the blood of independence.