Portal:Chile

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The Chile Portal

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, extending along a narrow strip of land between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. According to the 2024 census, Chile had an enumerated population of 18.5 million. The country covers a territorial area of 756,102 square kilometers (291,933 sq mi), sharing borders with Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. It also administers several Pacific islands, including Juan Fernández, Isla Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas, and Easter Island, and claims about 1,250,000 square kilometers (480,000 sq mi) of Antarctica as the Chilean Antarctic Territory. The capital and largest city is Santiago, and the official and national language is Spanish.

Spain conquered and colonized the region in the mid-16th century, replacing Inca rule; however, they failed to conquer the autonomous tribal Mapuche people who inhabited what is now south-central Chile. Chile emerged as a relatively stable authoritarian republic in the 1830s after its 1818 declaration of independence from Spain. During the 19th century, Chile experienced significant economic and territorial growth, putting an end to Mapuche resistance in the 1880s and gaining its current northern territory in the War of the Pacific (1879–83) by defeating Peru and Bolivia.

In the 20th century, until the 1970s, Chile underwent a process of democratization and experienced rapid population growth and urbanization, while relying increasingly on exports from copper mining to support its economy. During the 1960s and 1970s, the country was marked by severe left-right political polarization and turmoil, which culminated in the 11 September 1973 coup d'état that overthrew Salvador Allende's democratically elected left-wing government, with support from the United States. This was followed by a 16-and-a-half-year right-wing military dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet, during which the 1980 Constitution was enacted, along with numerous political and economic reforms, and which was marked by widespread human rights violations, including more than 3,000 deaths and disappearances. The regime ended in 1990, following a referendum in 1988, and was succeeded by a center-left coalition, which ruled until 2010. (Full article...)

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In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the South American nations of Argentina and Chile engaged in an expensive naval arms race to ensure the other would not gain supremacy in the Southern Cone.

Although the Argentine and Chilean navies were insignificant in the 1860s, with zero and five warships, respectively, Argentina's concern over a strong Imperial Brazilian Navy and the Chilean war against Spain caused them to add capable warships to their fleets in the 1870s. During this time, diplomatic relations between Argentina and Chile soured due to conflicting boundary claims, particularly in Patagonia. By the beginning of the 1880s, after the War of the Pacific, the Chilean government possessed possibly the strongest navy in the Americas. They planned to add to it with an 1887 appropriation for one battleship, two protected cruisers, and two torpedo gunboats. Argentina responded a year later with an order for two battleships of its own. The naval arms race unfolded over the next several years, with each country buying and ordering vessels that were slightly better than the previous ship, but the Argentines eventually pulled ahead with the acquisition of four Garibaldi-class cruisers. (Full article...)

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Vicuna at Museno Nacional de Bellas Artes, Chile, in 2014

Cecilia Vicuña (born 1948) is a Chilean poet and artist based in New York and Santiago, Chile.

Her work is noted for themes of language, memory, dissolution, extinction and exile. Critics also note the relevance of her work to the politics of ecological destruction, cultural homogenization, and economic disparity, particularly the way in which such phenomena disenfranchise the already powerless. Her commitment to feminist forms and methodologies is considered to be a unifying theme across her diverse body of work, among which her fibre art quipus, knotted or unknotted strings, palabrarmas and precarios, made from natural, delicate materials, stand out. Her practice has been specifically linked to the term eco-feminism. (Full article...)

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Chiloé National Park in December 2003

Chiloé Island (Spanish: Isla de Chiloé, pronounced [tʃiloˈe], locally [ʃiloˈe]), also known as Greater Island of Chiloé (Isla Grande de Chiloé), is the largest island of the Chiloé Archipelago off the west coast of Chile, in the Pacific Ocean. The island is located in southern Chile, in the Los Lagos Region.

The island is roughly rectangular. Its southwestern half is a wilderness of contiguous forests and swamps. Mountains form a belt running from the northwestern to the southeastern corners of the island. Cordillera del Piuchén make up the northern mountains and the more subdued Cordillera de Pirulil gathers the southern mountains. The landscape of the northeastern sectors of Chiloé Island is dominated by rolling hills with a mosaic of pastures, forests and cultivated fields. While the western shores are rocky and relatively straight, the eastern and northern shores contain many inlets, bays and peninsulas, and it is here where all towns and cities lie. (Full article...)

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Recognized content

Good articles

  • 360-degree Panorama of the Southern Sky edit
  • A 360 degree panorama of a unique cloudscape over La Silla
  • American kestrel (Falco sparverius cinnamominus) male Leona Amarga
  • Culpeo MC
  • FCAB EMD GT22CU-3 San Pedro - Ascotan
  • Gauchowheat edit2
  • Guanaco (Lama guanicoe) Leona Amarga 2
  • Géiseres del Tatio, Atacama, Chile, 2016-02-01, DD 03-05 HDR
  • Laguna Miñiques, Chile, 2016-02-08, DD 33-38 PAN
  • Laser Towards Milky Ways Centre
  • Lesser rhea (Rhea pennata pennata) Torres del Paine
  • Miscanti Lagoon near San Pedro de Atacama Chile Luca Galuzzi 2006
  • Moai Rano raraku
  • Puma (Puma concolor concolor) female Leona Amarga
  • SQM GE 289A Boxcab Carmelita - Reverso
  • The European Extremely Large Telescope
  • Volcanos Lascar left and Aguas Calientes right
  • Volcán Aucanquilcha, Chile, 2016-02-10, DD 11
  • Volcán San Pedro, Chile, 2016-02-09, DD 18
  • Vortex-street-1

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