Chile

📖 In short

Chile is a very long, thin country on the west coast of South America, between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean. It's more than 4000 kilometers long but very narrow. Its capital is Santiago.

🤩 Did you know?

Chile is more than ten times longer than it is wide.
Chile is one of the world's biggest copper producers.
The official language is Spanish, and the currency is the peso.
Chile imports most of the oil it needs.

🗂️ Fact file

Chile stretches along the west coast of South America, so its neighbors are Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and the South Pacific.

The coat of arms carries the Spanish motto: “By reason or by force”.

Capital: Santiago
Official language: Spanish
Official name: Republic of Chile
Currency: Basic unit: the peso.
Area: 756,626 km².
Population: 2000 estimate: 15,311,000 people.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 The driest desert

In northern Chile is the Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth, where some parts haven't had rain for a very long time. Because its sky is so clear, big observatories have been built there.

🔍 From desert to ice

Because Chile is so long, it has every kind of landscape: hot desert in the north, green plains in the middle, and forests, lakes and glaciers in the south.