By Sebastián Manzo and Santiago Escutary

1. CHILE: GEOGRAPHY

2. Chile is a country which territory extends from the west and southwest of south America. It bordered in the north by Peru, in the east by Bolivia and in the south and west by the Pacific Ocean. From north to south, Chile has an approximate length of 4.300 km and a width of 177 km.The country has a total area of 756.826 km2.

3. The capital and the main city is Santiago de Chile with a population of 5 million inhabitants. The relief is a vital geographical component in the settlement and the economy. Chile is a country with a lot of mountains, the plains only represent twenty percent of surface. This point cause a very important consequence on the distribution of the population. This one is concentred in the costal plains. Only in the northern desertical, where rainfall created a strip of grassland, about 2500 meters above the sea, there is human population in highlands.

4. For us the most important element in Chilean geography is the “cordillera de los Andes ”. It is a chain of mountain in South America which extends nearly parallel to the Pacific coast from Cape Horn to the vicinity of Panama. Is one of the largest mountain systems in the world. The string is 7240 km long, 241 km wide and an average of 3,660 m high. Since its narrow end in southern Chile, the Andes extend in parallel chains of Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. In Venezuela is divided into three different chains. Along its length, the mountain rises abruptly from the Pacific coast. The Andes is the most characteristic feature of the relief of Chile, is one of the largest mountain ranges that exist in the earth's surface, the second highest in the world after the Himalayas. The Andes continue in a submarine, appearing again in South Antillean arc and the O'Higgins Land, with the name of Antartandes. Their heights bordering the 2500 meters .

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