Santiago & Valparaíso

Before the Spanish, the central valley was farmed by peoples the Spanish called Picunche, and the Inca Empire pushed its frontier here in the 15th century, leaving roads and high-altitude shrines such as the one on Cerro El Plomo, where the frozen body of an Inca child was found in 1954. Pedro de Valdivia founded Santiago in 1541 beside the hill now called Santa Lucía, and it was burned within months by an indigenous attack led by Michimalonco. Valparaíso grew as its port. Independence was won nearby, at Chacabuco in 1817 and Maipú in 1818.

In the 19th century Valparaíso became the main port of the South American Pacific, with British and German merchants, banks and the first funiculars, until the Panama Canal diverted shipping after 1914. Santiago grew into a capital of French-style avenues. Easter Island, settled by Polynesians centuries earlier, was reached by the Dutch in 1722, ravaged by Peruvian slave raids in 1862 and annexed by Chile in 1888, then leased as a sheep ranch, with islanders confined to Hanga Roa until the 1960s.

On 11 September 1973 the navy moved first in Valparaíso and air force jets bombed La Moneda, where President Allende died. The dictatorship used sites such as the National Stadium and Villa Grimaldi for detention and torture. A plebiscite in 1988 rejected continued rule by Pinochet, and Congress moved to Valparaíso in 1990. In October 2019 protests over a metro fare rise grew into mass demonstrations about inequality; voters then approved writing a new constitution in 2020, but rejected the drafts in 2022 and 2023.

Santiago sets Chile's national tone: its fast, slangy Spanish, full of po and cachai, its media and its politics, and a divide between the wealthy eastern districts and the working-class south and west that many Chileans see as the country's inequality in miniature. Football divides the capital between Colo-Colo and Universidad de Chile, while Valparaíso follows Santiago Wanderers, one of the oldest clubs in the country.

Valparaíso has a bohemian identity of its own — artists, musicians, street art and a New Year's fireworks show over the bay — and Pablo Neruda kept houses at Valparaíso, Isla Negra and in Santiago. Viña del Mar's song festival, held in the Quinta Vergara amphitheatre each February since 1960, is one of the largest in Latin America. The Fiestas Patrias in September fill the parks with fondas, cueca dancing and grilled meat, and Pomaire, west of Santiago, keeps a pottery tradition.

Easter Island is culturally Polynesian. The Rapa Nui language is taught in schools, and the Tapati Rapa Nui festival, held since 1975 around the start of February, celebrates the island's culture.

More than a third of Chile's population lives in Greater Santiago, from high-rise Las Condes and Providencia to the sprawling communes of the south and west. Greater Valparaíso, including Viña del Mar, has around a million. San Antonio, a major container port, lies on the coast to the south. Easter Island has about 8,000 people, most in Hanga Roa.

The capital concentrates Chile's finance, government, universities and services, with Gran Torre Santiago, one of the tallest buildings in South America, as its symbol. Farms around it grow fruit and grapes. Valparaíso lives from its port, universities, Congress and tourism; Easter Island almost entirely from tourism.

Current issues include crime, the cost of housing, winter smog, water shortages after years of drought, and wildfire risk around the coast. On Easter Island, limits on visitor stays and debates over land and self-government are live.

Santiago's markets set the menu: the Mercado Central for fish and seafood such as caldillo de congrio, the conger-eel soup Neruda wrote an ode to, and La Vega for fruit and cheap lunches. The city is also the home of great sandwiches — the Barros Luco, beef with melted cheese, named after a president, and the chacarero, beef with green beans, tomato and chilli. The terremoto, pipeño wine with pineapple ice cream, is associated with La Piojera bar. Pomaire is known for its empanadas.

Valparaíso's contribution is the chorrillana, a platter of chips topped with strips of beef and fried onions, shared in its old bars, and the coast serves machas a la parmesana and seafood empanadas.

The Maipo valley is famous for Cabernet Sauvignon and the Casablanca valley for Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. On Easter Island, po'e, a pudding of banana or pumpkin traditionally baked in an earth oven, reflects Polynesian roots.

Santiago's centre holds the Plaza de Armas, the Metropolitan Cathedral, La Moneda, the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino and the Mercado Central. Cerro Santa Lucía and Cerro San Cristóbal, with its funicular and statue of the Virgin, give views over the city; Bellavista, with Neruda's house La Chascona, and Lastarria are the lively quarters, and the Museum of Memory and Human Rights documents the dictatorship.

Valparaíso's historic quarter, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is best walked on Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepción, riding the old funiculars and visiting Neruda's La Sebastiana; Viña del Mar has its beaches and the Quinta Vergara. Neruda's Isla Negra house lies down the coast. The Casablanca wine valley sits between the cities, and the Maipo valley's wineries, among them Concha y Toro at Pirque, lie on Santiago's southern edge.

East of the capital, the Cajón del Maipo leads to the El Yeso reservoir and El Morado glacier, and ski resorts such as Valle Nevado sit above the city. Near the Argentine border, Portillo overlooks Laguna del Inca. Far out in the Pacific, reached by air from Santiago, Rapa Nui National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on Easter Island, has hundreds of moai: fifteen stand on Ahu Tongariki, and the quarry of Rano Raraku holds many more, unfinished. Orongo, on the rim of Rano Kau, was the site of the birdman cult, and Anakena is the island's main beach.