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Chile Highlights – What not to miss when in Chile

Chile Highlights – What not to miss when in Chile

Our team at ChileCulture has compile a list of highlights of Chile. This list contains memorable and important places and cultural insights of Chile. Parque Nacional Torres del Paine This spectacular park is located in the Patagonia region and draws tourism to southern Chile. The national park comprises 18,414 hectares of forest, glacial lakes and some of the Andes’ youngest peaks. Over million of years water, snow, wind and ice have eroded the terrain creating Torres … Read entire article »

Filed under: Chile Travel and Places, Popular

Santiago

Santiago

Santiago is the capital and the largest city of Chile. Due to Chile’s economic growth during the past decades Santiago has become one of Latin America’s most modern cities. Santiago’s urban area or Greater Santiago, which includes the Commune of Santiago, has a population of over 5 million people who are called Santiaguinos. The Metropolitan area has about 7 million inhabitants. Santiago, also known as Santiago de Chile, was founded by Spanish conqueror Pedro Valdivia on … Read entire article »

Filed under: Chile Travel and Places, Santiago

Santiago Neighborhoods

Santiago Neighborhoods

Historic Center The historic center is located between the Mapocho River and the Alameda. This is where the Spanish conquistadors built their city and where the first colonial buildings were constructed around the Plaza de Armas. Chile’s first church, now the cathedral, was built in this square in 1551. It was destroyed and rebuilt twice after the 1647 and 1730 earthquakes. The present cathedral was built between the years 1748 and 1775 with many renovations and … Read entire article »

Filed under: Santiago

Valparaiso

Valparaiso

Valparaiso, The Jewel of the Pacific, offers a unique appeal. Its location overlooking the Pacific Ocean and its labyrinth of streets built on the steep hills and reached by elevators is the . Valparaiso is located in Chile’s central coast; it is the country’s second busiest seaport after San Antonio. The city has emerged from a long industrial decline, but today it takes pride in its industrial past and has undergone urban renewal capitalizing in … Read entire article »

Filed under: Central Chile

Tierra del Fuego National Park

Tierra del Fuego National Park

Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego stretches along the border with Chile and protects more than 63,000 hectares of beech forest, jagged mountains and glaciers, lakes, sub Antartic tundra, local flora and fauna and coastline. Climate in the park is maritime with high winds. Its elevation ranges from sea level to its highest point at 1,450 meters / 4,757  on the summit of Monte Vinciguerra. The park extends from the Beagle Channel and to the north across … Read entire article »

Filed under: South Patagonia

What to do in Tierra del Fuego?

As one of the least inhabited areas of South America and cut off from the mainland by the Strait of Magellan, nature in Tierra del Fuego is virtually unspoiled, save for a few spots of oil exploration and mining extraction. Porvenir The capital and the largest city of the province of Chilean Tierra del Fuego is Porvenir with a population of 6,400. The second largest city is Cerro Sombrero, an oil town located 125 km or 78 miles from Porvenir. Porvenir was founded in 1894 as a result of a gold rush, today some gold deposits remain to be mined but not in a large scale as in the past. Many of the inhabitants are descendants of Yugoslavian immigrants who came to the island at the end of the 19th century following … Read entire article »

Filed under: South Patagonia

Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego Province is Chile’s southernmost region; it is one of the four provinces in the south Chilean region of Magallanes and Antártica Chilena. The Island was discovered by Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer, who called it Tierra del Fuego because of his observation of bonfires on the shores of the island set by the Ona Indians. Puerto Williams is the world’s southernmost town.   As one travels to Tierra del Fuego, south of Puerto Montt, the … Read entire article »

Filed under: Chile Travel and Places, South Patagonia

Easter Island

Easter Island

Where is Easter Island? Easter Island is a tiny piece of land located in the south east of the Pacific Ocean, it is best known for its 887 giant statues called moai created by the Polynesian indigenous Rapa Nui . Its territory covers 64 sq miles or 166 sq kilometers, it is about 24km or 15m long and at its widest point 12 km or 8mi. The island was formed by volcano eruptions 750,000 years ago; today … Read entire article »

Filed under: Chile Travel and Places, Pacific Islands

Easter Island History

Easter Island History

Easter Island was so named by Jacob Roggeveen, a Dutch explorer who on April 5, 1722, Easter Sunday, was the first European to visit the island. First Inhabitants Radio carbon studies estimate that the first inhabitants of  settled between 700 CE and 1200 CE. There is much debate about the origin of the Rapa Nui. Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl suggested that Polynesia was settled by the Incas coming from South America, one of the reasons … Read entire article »

Filed under: Chile History, Chile Travel and Places, Pacific Islands

Easter Island Statues – moai

Easter Island Statues – moai

The massive 887 stone statues or moai built in Easter Island by the Rapa Nui are unique. Although there are stone figures in other Polynesian islands none of them are of the size of the Easter Island statues. The largest finished statue reaches more than 30 feet or 9.14 meters and the smallest 6 feet or 1.80 meters. Many moai were never finished, in fact the largest one found was unfinished and would have stood … Read entire article »

Filed under: Chile Travel and Places, Featured, Pacific Islands

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