Geography
Geographically, this is one long thin country, with the Andes mountain range always present, its snow capped peaks visible from just about any point.
The north of Chile is mostly a desert landscape, filled with infinite colors and shaped by the wind and ancient volcanic and tectonic movements. The Andes mountain range generates the water that feeds oasis communities with lush greenery surrounded by the emptiness of the driest desert in the world, the Atacama.
Central Chile is home to the capital, Santiago. It’s similar to different regions of Europe or North America, but in a very concentrated region, with Mediterranean landscapes, coastal forests, sandy beaches, modern cityscapes, mountainous valleys, and unique palm tree forests.
Southern Chile is an area dominated by large swaths of forest, mixed with unrestrained rivers, lakes, snow capped volcanoes, and rolling farmland. The coast is more rugged, and some areas have black volcanic sand. National Parks abound, with stunning landscapes, thermal springs and greenery making the most remarkable of features.
Patagonia is a more extreme climate, but also stunning in its natural beauty. It stretches from 1000 km south of Santiago to Fire Land or Tierra del Fuego. It is, basically, the end of the world and one of the most exclusive travel destinations on earth.
In its extreme southern reaches, Patagonia breaks apart into hundreds of windswept islands, separated by canals, straits and seas and covered with exuberant vegetation.
Chilean Patagonia consists of 132.000 square kilometers of islands, canals, fjords, icebergs and glaciers. Ships offer cruises through the zone of eternal ice, with its glaciers, such as the 30.000-year-old San Rafael Glacier, cascading spectacularly into the sea.
In the Strait of Magellan, winds blow at more than 100 kilometers per hour, and the waters are fickle and treacherous. The Evangelistas Lighthouse serves as the last, lonely guide for navigators. Once there were large cattle ranches and gold mines in Tierra del Fuego. Today, it is the country’s center for petroleum operations and large-scale forestry projects.
On ChiloÈ Island, a land of legends and traditions passed on by its inhabitants from generation to generation, more than 100 small wooden chapels remain as notable vestiges of the work of Jesuits and Franciscans. On November 30, 2000, UNESCO declared 14 of the chapels to be World Heritage sites.
In the south, where rain is abundant, the land is dotted with lakes and volcanoes towering above old-growth forests. It is not only a paradise for fishermen and nature enthusiasts, but also the source of the country’s rich timber and water resources.
Chile ends at Antarctica, where it maintains five bases and a civilian settlement, Villa Las Estrellas, founded in 1984 and where 90 people live. The country suscribes to the 1959 Antarctic Treaty.
Film Production in Chile can take advantage of this stunning variety of landscapes and the inverse climate to have TVCs on air for the following season in the northern hemisphere.