Most Chileans live in metropolitan areas. Santiago, the capital, has over 6 million residents (including the suburbs). It's crowded and suffering from air pollution caused by light industry and mass transit vehicles. Chile's population (1999 estimate), was 15.5 million, with approximately 48 people per square mile.
The official language is Spanish and the currency is the Chilean Peso. Nearly one million Mapuche Indians live in the central and southern parts of the country. Overall, the population mix is primarily a combination of European-Indian peoples.
Chile is the world's largest copper producer and is known for its growing, high-quality wine business. Fish exports and gold mining are other important industries.
At the southern end of the country the scenery is breathtaking, with towering mountains, glaciers and hundreds of small islands. At its tip (Cape Horn), the seas through the Drake Passage are violent,and the ice of Antarctica is only 450 miles due south.
Chile's confining strip of land extends almost 2,700 miles down the western coast of South America.
The highest peaks of the Andes Mountains are snow covered year round.
The climate ranges from rugged (arctic-like) conditions in the south, moderate to mild in the central regions, and in the north, the Atacama Desert is the driest in the world. (Hundreds of years can pass between rain storms, and in that desert, a storm in 1971 was the first in 400 years).
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