Country profile: Chile |
This ranges from the world's driest desert in the north, through a Mediterranean climate in the centre, to a snow-prone Alpine climate in the south, with glaciers, fjords and lakes.
Consisting largely of people of mixed Spanish and indigenous descent, Chile has been relatively free of the coups and arbitrary governments that have blighted the region.
The exception was the 17-year-long rule of Augusto Pinochet, whose coup in 1973 was one of the bloodiest in 20th-century Latin America and whose dictatorship left more than 3,000 dead and missing.
Pinochet's dictatorship ended in 1990 after he gambled his one-man rule on a plebiscite two years earlier and lost. But Chile has begun to come to terms with his legacy. His arrest and subsequent detention in London in October 1998 following an extradition request from Spain polarised Chilean society.
But it also broke a taboo, culminating in court decisions which stripped him of his immunity from prosecution. The former president has been questioned over the killings of dissidents by South American governments in the 1970s and 1980s; he denies links with the campaign.
Chile is relatively free of crime and official corruption. It had Latin America's fastest-growing economy in the 1990s and has weathered recent regional economic instability.
But it faces the challenges of having to diversify its copper-dependent economy and address its uneven distribution of wealth.
Population: 16.2 million (UN, 2005)
Capital: Santiago
Area: 756,096 sq km (291,930 sq miles)
Major language: Spanish
Major religion: Christianity
Life expectancy: 73 years (men), 79 years (women) (UN)
Monetary unit: Chilean peso
Main exports: Copper, fish, fruits, paper and pulp, chemicals
GNI per capita: US$4,390 (World Bank, 2003)
Internet domain: .cl
International dialling code: +56
LEADERS
President: Ricardo Lagos Escobar
Ricardo Lagos won the second round of presidential elections in January 2000, promising to reduce unemployment and to boost economic growth.
President Lagos - regarded as a moderate leftist
His government has undertaken major poverty-alleviation programmes and has overseen a strongly-performing economy. But unemployment remains high.
Under his presidency, Chile signed a free-trade deal with the US - the first South American country to do so. Mr Lagos resisted lobbying from Washington and London and refused to back military action in the run up to the 2003 Iraq war.
In 2004 President Lagos described the lack of progress in improving relations with Bolivia as a "great failure" of his administration. The two countries have had no diplomatic relations for decades because of a dispute over access to a Pacific port.
In the 1980s he headed a coalition of parties opposed to Gen Pinochet and in 1986 he was arrested and detained without charge following an assassination attempt on Gen Pinochet. In 1987 he formed the Party for Democracy, which is now part of the ruling alliance.
Following Chile's return to democracy, Mr Lagos served first as education minister and then as public works minister in the government of President Eduardo Frei from 1994 to 1998. He is widely regarded as a moderate leftist.
Foreign minister: Ignacio Walker
Finance minister: Nicolas Eyzaguirre
MEDIA
Chile's national and local TV channels operate alongside extensive cable TV networks, which carry many US and international stations.
The constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the media, and this is generally respected by the authorities. The media maintain their independence, criticise the government and cover sensitive issues.
A 2001 press freedom act swept away many of the Pinochet-era restrictions on the media.
The press
El Mercurio - conservative daily
La Tercera - daily
La Nacion - government-owned daily
La Segunda - conservative evening daily
El Diario - business daily
Santiago Times - English-language
Television
National Television of Chile - state-owned but not under direct government control
TV Universidad Catolica de Chile (TVUC) - owned by Catholic university
Chilevision - owned by Venezuela's Cisneros Group
Megavision - private network
Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso - owned by Catholic university
Red TV - commercial
Radio
Radio Nacional de Chile
Radio Cooperativa - news-based national commercial network
Pudahuel FM - commercial
Bio Bio La Radio - commercial network
El Conquistador FM - commercial network
Radio Horizonte - music-based FM network
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