Santiago de Chile was founded as a Spanish colonial city in 1541 in the great longitudinal valley of Chile between the coastal and central cordillera and built in the Spanish colonial style like a chessboard.
As the capital of Chile, Santiago is not only the most populous city and the political and intellectual center of the country, but also the most important industrial center. According to Countryaah, Santiago de Chile is located in central Chile, 90 km from the Pacific coast at the exit of the Rio Mapocho in the Great Longitudinal Valley.
Santiago is framed in the west by the coastal cordillera and in the east by the central cordillera, whose volcanoes reach heights of more than 5000 m. 5.4 million people live in the city. If you take the greater Santiago area, there are over 8 million people. Every third Chilean therefore lives in this largest urban agglomeration in the country.
Santiago de Chile is the center of spiritual life in the country. A total of four universities, several scientific academies, a technical university, the national library of the country, observatories and many museums and theaters bear witness to this.
The city is laid out like a chessboard in the Spanish colonial style. However, there are only a few evidence of the historical building stock, as the city has been attacked several times by Indians and destroyed by earthquakes and floods in the more than 450 years of its history.
Older buildings worth seeing have only been preserved in the core of the city founded by the Spaniards. For example, on the magnificent Plaza de Armas, the 16th century cathedral.
As the main street, the 100 m wide Almeda Bernardo O’Higgins runs through almost the entire city from southwest to northeast. The street is named after the freedom hero of Chile who, together with JOSÈ DE SAN MARTIN, liberated the country from the Spanish.
The Almeda Bernardo O’Higgins separates the Spanish old town from the new town, where the heart of Chilean industry beats. In the largest industrial center in the country, numerous companies from a wide variety of industries, especially the food, textile, clothing, leather goods and pharmaceutical industries, have settled.
The city therefore has a well-developed inner-city transport network, including a. a subway and good connections to the ports of San Antonio and Valparaiso.
History
Santiago de Chile was founded at the time of the Spanish conquests. After the Inca Empire was smashed, the Spaniards under PIZARRO advanced into what is now Chile from 1535.
On the orders of PIZARRO, PEDRO DE VALDIVIA founded the city of Santiago in 1541.
Easter Island
Easter Island, which belongs to Chile, is very remote. On it are up to 10 m high monumental statues (so-called Moai), which have been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The statues were probably erected by the Polynesian natives, who had their own culture and script.
The Easter Island belongs to Chile. It is located 3700 km off the South American coast in the South Pacific and is the easternmost island in the archipelago of Oceania.
With 163 km², Easter Island is only a third of the area of Usedom Island. About 3761 residents live on it, mainly Polynesians, the indigenous people, and Chileans.
The island “sits” on the East Pacific Ridge and rises a little more than 500 m above sea level. It is of volcanic origin. This is evidenced by three volcanic craters, the highest of which rises 511 m from the sea.
The island has a subtropical climate that is heavily influenced by the ocean .
The originally very lush vegetation was sacrificed for grazing. Today there is steppe-like grassland.
In addition to some agriculture and fishing for their own needs, the residents of the island mainly live from tourism.
The fascination of Easter Island can be explained by a number of puzzles that it still poses to scientists:
For example, it is not yet completely clear how the remote island was settled and who otherwise were the builders of the fascinating monumental statues, the so-called Moai nowhere else in the world.
We now know that the island was first settled by Polynesians in 400 AD and that a second wave of colonization probably followed in the 14th century.
These Polynesian natives developed an independent culture on the island from the 12th to the 17th century with their own style of art and probably created the monumental figures.
For example, they were the only residents of Oceania who owned a script. The hieroglyphic writing system handed down on small wooden tablets (“rongorongo”) could only be partially deciphered in 1956.
Mostly near the coast, but scattered all over the island, there are around 600 statues.
The majority of them are located in the Rapa Nui National Park, which has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
The moai are carved from tufa, a soft rock made from solidified volcanic ash. Some are two, others up to 10 m high and weigh up to 80 tons. An unfinished statue in the crater of Rano Raraku is even 21 m high.
However, science still does not agree on the meaning of the statues. It is at least believed that the statues that Some of them are set up in rows on basalt stone platforms, which served the cult of ancestors.
But how the statues were transported with their weight and how they were placed on the platforms, there are no conclusive explanations for this either.
Discovered the island was by a Dutch expedition on Easter Sunday 1722. That explains its name.
At the time of discovery, up to 15,000 people probably lived on it. Due to armed conflicts between the residents and Peruvian slave hunters, however, the population fell sharply until the island was annexed by Chile.
