Chile, Concón, Bosques de Montemar (43470659892)

Casa Central de la Universidad Católica de Valparaíso

The Valparaíso Region ( es, Región de Valparaíso, links=no, ) is one of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

's 16 first order administrative divisions.Valparaíso Region, 2006 With the country's second-highest population of 1,790,219 , and fourth-smallest area of , the region is Chile's second most densely populated after the

Santiago Metropolitan Region Santiago Metropolitan Region ( es, link=no, Región Metropolitana de Santiago) is one of Chile's 16 first-order administrative divisions. It is the country's only landlocked administrative region and contains the nation's capital, Santiago. Mos ...

to the southeast. The region also includes the remote Easter Island (Rapa Nui) in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

. Its capital is the port city of

Valparaíso Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...

; other important cities include Viña del Mar,

Quillota Quillota is a city located in the Aconcagua River valley in central Chile's Valparaíso Region. It is the capital and largest city of Quillota Province, where many inhabitants live in the outlying farming areas of San Isidro, La Palma, Pococ ...

, San Felipe,

Quilpué Quilpué is a city and capital of the Marga Marga Province in central Chile's Valparaíso Region. It is part of the Greater Valparaíso metropolitan area. It is widely known as "City of the Sun" (''Ciudad del Sol'') and the urban part of it als ...

Villa Alemana Villa Alemana ("German Village" in English) is a city and commune in Chile's Zona Central. It was founded in 1896 by Italian and German immigrants. Villa Alemana is a part of the urban area known as Greater Valparaiso. Villa Alemana's flag is n ...

, and

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= U.S. state, State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , s ...

Administration

As a region, Valparaíso is a first-level administrative division. Since 2021 the region is governed by the governor, who is elected by popular vote. The current governor is Rodrigo Mundaca ( Broad Font).

Geography and natural features

The region is on the same latitude as the

. Its capital is

, which is the site for the National Congress of Chile and an important commercial port. Also in this region is the top resort city of Viña del Mar. Additionally, the Pacific islands of

Easter Island Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearl ...

Isla Salas y Gómez Isla Salas y Gómez, also known as Isla Sala y Gómez ( rap, Motu Motiro Hiva), is a small uninhabited Chilean island in the Pacific Ocean. It is sometimes considered the easternmost point in the Polynesian Triangle. Isla Salas y Gómez and its s ...

, the

Juan Fernández Islands The Juan Fernández Islands ( es, Archipiélago Juan Fernández) are a sparsely inhabited series of islands in the South Pacific Ocean reliant on tourism and fishing. Situated off the coast of Chile, they are composed of three main volcanic i ...

and the

Desventuradas Islands The Desventuradas Islands ( es, Islas Desventuradas, , "Unfortunate Islands" or ''Islas de los Desventurados'', "Islands of the Unfortunate Ones") is a group of four small oceanic islands located off the coast of Chile, northwest of Santiago in ...

fall under the Valparaíso Region's administration. The Valparaíso Region is part of the very restricted range of the

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inva ...

Chilean wine palm ''Jubaea'' is a genus of palms with one species, ''Jubaea chilensis'' or ''Jubaea spectabilis'', commonly known in English as the Chilean wine palm or Chile cocopalm, and palma chilena in Spanish. It is native to southwestern South America and i ...

(''Jubaea chilensis''); in prehistoric times, this

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Chilean tree had a significantly larger range.C. Michael Hogan, 2008

Demographics

The Valparaíso Region is populated by some 1.71 million inhabitants. The population density reached 94.1 inhabitants/km². 91.6% of the population lives in urban areas and only 8.4% of the population lives in rural areas. The most populous municipalities in the region are Valparaíso, with 308,000 inhabitants and Viña del Mar, with 287,000 inhabitants, which together with

and

Concón Concón is a Chilean city and commune in Valparaíso Province, Valparaíso Region. It is a major tourist center known for its beaches, ''balnearios'' (beachside resorts) and night life. Geography The commune of Concón spans an area of . It is ...

form the

Greater Valparaíso Greater Valparaíso (''Gran Valparaíso'') is the second largest metropolitan area in Chile, after Greater Santiago. It takes this name after the city of Valparaíso, the oldest city of the group and the most important harbour in Chile. It ...

, a continuum of 1.75 million people. There are also

, with about 201,000 inhabitants and

with more than 200,000 inhabitants with estimates at 250,000 to be the region's second-largest city.

Immigration and culture

Valparaíso developed as a trans-oceanic rest stop for fishing ships, sea cruise-liners, and international naval ships. Therefore, a large proportion of residents have a variety of national origins, ethnic groups, and cultures. The 16th-century colonial population was founded by male settlers from the Spanish regions of

Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...

Asturia Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous community in northwest Spain. It is coextensive ...

and León, and the large Basque contingent has given rise to a substantial

Basque Chilean Many Basques arrived in Chile in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th century from their homeland in northern Spain (see Basque Provinces) and parts of southwestern France, as conquistadors, soldiers, sailors, merchants, priests and labour ...

population. Large numbers came from other countries of Latin America from Mexico to Uruguay, esp. came during colonial rule in the 17th century. And in the late 18th–early 19th centuries came a small wave of Galician settlers from the Spanish region of Galicia. It is thought the majority of Valparaíso's people have some non-Spanish European background, such as: British and Irish, Australians and New Zealanders, North Americans (U.S. or Canadian), Croats and Bosnians, Dutch and Belgians, French, Germans, Greeks, Italians, Portuguese and Scandinavians. Also, there are more or less assimilated groups of Chilean Jews (mostly Ashkenazi), as well as

Christians from the Ottoman Empire Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

, primarily Syro-Lebanese and a large Palestinian community in the town of La Calera. In racial terms, the majority of Valparaíso's inhabitants are castizos, meaning that their paternal origins are overwhelmingly from white whalers, settlers and traders of various European nationalities, including colonial Spanish settlers, while their maternal origins usually stems from unions between colonial Spanish men and local indigenous women, including those of

Mapuche The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who sha ...

Inca The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The admin ...

Aymara Aymara may refer to: Languages and people * Aymaran languages, the second most widespread Andean language ** Aymara language, the main language within that family ** Central Aymara, the other surviving branch of the Aymara(n) family, which today ...

and

North American Indian The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the Am ...

descent (transplanted

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

s are reported to come in the late 19th century, though it could well be a myth). Smaller numbers of

East Asians East Asian people (East Asians) are the people from East Asia, which consists of China, Taiwan, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, and South Korea. The total population of all countries within this region is estimated to be 1.677 billion and 21% of t ...

, mostly

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

, minuscule numbers of Afro-Chileans, as well as a component of

Polynesians Polynesians form an ethnolinguistic group of closely related people who are native to Polynesia (islands in the Polynesian Triangle), an expansive region of Oceania in the Pacific Ocean. They trace their early prehistoric origins to Island Sou ...

whose ancestors were kidnapped from

and the

Marquesas Islands The Marquesas Islands (; french: Îles Marquises or ' or '; Marquesan: ' ( North Marquesan) and ' ( South Marquesan), both meaning "the land of men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in ...

, further added to the region's

Hispanicized Hispanicization ( es, hispanización) refers to the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by Hispanic culture or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-Hispanic becomes Hispanic. Hispanicization is il ...

melting pot The melting pot is a monocultural metaphor for a heterogeneous society becoming more homogeneous, the different elements "melting together" with a common culture; an alternative being a homogeneous society becoming more heterogeneous throug ...

Economics and industry

The Valparaíso Region is a host of agricultural lands, wine producers, and industrial activity such as copper mining and cement. Chile's largest oil refinery is located in

(on the mouth of the

Aconcagua River The Aconcagua River is a river in Chile that rises from the conflux of two minor tributary rivers at above sea level in the Andes, Juncal River from the east (which rise in the Nevado Juncal) and Blanco River from the south east. The Aconcag ...

and about north of Valparaíso) and there are two important copper ore refineries: the state-owned Ventanas (on the coast and north of Concón) and the private works in

Chagres Chagres (), once the chief Atlantic port on the isthmus of Panama, is now an abandoned village at the historical site of Fort San Lorenzo ( es, Fuerte de San Lorenzo). The fort's ruins and the village site are located about west of Colón, on ...

, about inland. The region also is a hub for chemicals and gas storage near the port of

Quintero Quintero is a Chilean city and commune in Valparaíso Province, in the Valparaíso Region, 30 kilometers north of Valparaíso. The commune spans an area of . It was the first port in the country, created during the expedition of Diego de Almagr ...

. In the interior valleys, there is a booming export industry, mainly around the avocado (palta), chirimoyas and flowers. The most striking recent development has been the cultivation of hillsides using high-tech drip feed irrigation. This has allowed otherwise dry and unproductive land to bear high yields.

Provinces and communes

References

* C. Michael Hogan (2008
''Chilean Wine Palm: Jubaea chilensis'', GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. Nicklas Stromberg
* Valparaíso Region, Chile (2006

Line notes

Citations

External links

Gobierno Regional de Valparaíso
Official website
Robinson Crusoe, Moai statues and the Rapa Nui: the stories of Chile’s far-off islands
{{DEFAULTSORT:Valparaiso Region Regions of Chile