Some facts about Chile...

I got to wondering one day about how long Chile is, so I Googled it, and found some other info as well and thought some might be curious to know more about Chile and its history.  Here are some interesting factoids...

On a map, some nations are easily recognized by their shape, but probably none as easily as Chile. This icicle-shaped country in South America stretches about 2,800 miles along the Pacific Ocean.

Its average width is just 110 miles, and nowhere is Chile more than 250 miles wide! Though only about the size of Texas and South Carolina combined, Chile would stretch from the Canadian-American border all the way to the southern end of Mexico!

The Andes Mountains are the main feature of Chile, and these mountains can be seen from almost everywhere in the country. The Andes form the border between Chile and Argentina, and here can be found the highest peaks in the Americas.

The Andes, taken last night from our balcony...

There are desert regions in northern Chile, and cold, rainy forests in the southern part of the country. Most of Chile’s 11 million people live in the central region, and almost 80 percent live in cities.

Once the land of the Inca and Araucanian* Indians, Chile was colonized by Spain during the sixteenth century. In 1818, Jose de San Martin led an army from Argentina into Chile and defeated Spanish forces there, leading to independence for Chile.
(http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com/how-long-is-chile)

*Mapuche Indians, which were called Araucanian Indians by the Spaniards

...And some facts I grabbed from Wikipedia (link for full article at bottom):
Chile produces more than a third of the world's copper, mainly in the Atacama Desert in the northernmost part of the country, making it the largest copper producing country in the world. They mine approximately five times what the U.S. produces each year.  Impressive!  (Remember the 33 trapped miners that we heard so much in 2010??  Copper mines.)

Part of Chile's diverse climate includes the world's driest desert in the north - the Atacama - and a Mediterranean climate in the center, including Santiago - very similar valley weather to Lodi and California's Central Valley!

Chile is the world's fifth largest exporter of wine, and eighth largest producer.  (Wish we could find a way to go check out some of the great wineries that Chile has to offer...!  Tough with little ones...)

This touches briefly on our observations about the style of houses in our neighborhood here, that seem to us like they would be found in England or Germany... (From the wiki article link below): 
Descendants of different European ethnic groups often intermarried in Chile, diluting the cultures and separate identities of the home countries and fusing them together with the descendants of the original Basque-Castilian aristocracy of the colonial period, while at the same time preserving some separate aspects. This intermarriage and mixture of cultures and races has help shape the present society and culture of the Chilean middle and upper classes, who now enjoy varied elements of their original European cultures, such as British afternoon tea, German cakes, and Italian pasta. The fusion is also visible in the architecture of Chilean cities.

Two blocks over from us

Indigenous Communities:
According to the 2002 census, only indigenous people that still practiced a native culture or spoke a native language were surveyed, and 4.6 percent of the population (692,192 people) fit that description.  Of that, 87.3 percent declared themselves Mapuche.

Pablo Neruda (Nobel Prize winning poet) and Isabel Allende (Chile's best selling author, most recognized for her book Casa de Los Espíritus, or House of Spirits) are both from Chile.

Chile's national sport is rodeo, and the riders are required to wear traditional huaso (Chilean cowboy) garb, as seen in the picture below.   

(The full version, for curious minds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile#References. )