Chile is 4,270 kilometers long, starting from the middle of South America’s west coast to Cape Horn, the southernmost point of the continent. The country is only 380 km at its widest from east to west, and the narrowest point is only118 km. Its northern neighbors are Peru and Bolivia, its border with Argentina to the east is 5,150 km long. Its Pacific coastline in the west is 6,435 km long and consists mostly of high steep cliffs dropping into the sea.

The country has an area of 756,950 sq km, which includes Easter Island and Islas Juan Fernández. Easter Island, located 3,600 km west in the Polynesian Pacific, is known for its 887 monolithic expressionless human figures (Moais) sculpted of volcanic rocks. The Islas Juan Fernández, located 587 kilometers west, includes Isla Robinson Crusoe, which was the inspiration for the well-known novel of the same name.

The Andes is on the eastern side of Chile. Cordillera Domeyko (Domeyko mountain) in northern part runs along the Pacific coast parallel to the Andes. These highlands take up to half of the width of the country. Between the mountain ranges in the north are fertile valleys.

There are five north-to-south natural regions:

- Norte Grande (far north), consisting of high coastal cliffs and mountains, Andes plateaus and the Atacama Desert. It has a desert climate.
- Norte Chico (near north), a region from the south of Atacama to Santiago where the coastal range and the Andes meet. It has a semi-arid climate.
- Zono Central (Chile Central), the region where the coastal range and the Andes run in parallel, with the fertile Central Valley in between. It is the most densely populated region. It has a temperate, Mediterranean climate.
- Zono Sur (Southern Zone), which is the heavily forested south, south of Río Bío-Bío River, with a lake district crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers. It has a temperate ocean climate, being cool and rainy in the winter;
- Zono Austral (Chile Austral), in the far south, which has glacial landscape, coastline with islands, headlands and fjords, and ice fields in the Andes. The weather is constantly cold and stormy.

The northern two-thirds of Chile lie on top of the Nazca Plate, which forces its way eastwards at about 4 cm a year under the South American Plate, forming the Peru-Chile Trench off the Pacific coast. The trench has an average wide of 70 km, is about 6,000 km long and has a maximum depth of 8,000 m. This means that Chile is on the edge of a very deep depression below the surface of the Pacific.

The movement of the tectonic plates around Chile is the cause of many earthquakes. In the last century alone, Chile was struck by twenty-eight major earthquakes, all with a force greater than 6.9 on the Richter scale. On two days in mid-1960 two major earthquakes occurred, causing extensive devastation in south-central Chile. The Andes, also a product of the earth crust movements, has about 600 volcanoes in Chile alone, many of them active and almost sixty erupted in the last century.

Chile has many major rivers, including Loa (the longest at about 480 km), Bio-Bio and Aconcagua. It also many large lakes, especially in the south; the larger ones include General Carerra, Ranco and Sarmiento.

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Last edited Dec 15, 09 12:13 AM. Contributors: Andrew W.