The Valdivia area is surrounded by colonial age forts and battlements that date back to the Spanish occupation of this region of Chile.

A recently published book entitled Fighting Techniques of the Colonial Age: 1776–1914 Equipment, Combat Skills and Tactics features a photograph I took while visiting Valdivia and the Spanish Fort at Niebla.

The publisher contacted me during this book’s development and asked to use my picture of the Niebla fort in their forthcoming book:

My picture of the Spanish Fort:

You can see they turned the photo into a black and white version which makes it look even more historical:

If you like history, this book is an interesting one to add to your collection. You can see more details about it on Amazon.com: Fighting Techniques of the Colonial Age: 1776–1914 Equipment, Combat Skills and Tactics

Chile stretches from near Visviri (it’s northernmost populated area) and the Tripartite border with Bolivia and Peru, south to Águila Islet of the Diego Ramirez Islands in the cold waters of the Drake Passage.

If you consider that Chile claims a piece of Antarctica, then it’s southern extremity continues all the way to the South Pole. This, of course, will give you a significantly longer length than what you may see referenced elsewhere.

Chile, from the northern border with Peru and Bolivia down to its southernmost island, is about 2700 miles or 4300 kilometers in length.

From the northern tip down to the South Pole increases that length to about 5000 miles or 8000 kilometers.

For comparison purposes, excluding Antarctica, Chile:

• would stretch from the Canadian/American border all the way to the end of Mexico
• is about the distance from Maine to San Diego, California
• is longer than the distance between Lisbon, Portugal and Moscow, Russia
• could easily provide a land bridge between the Eastern tip of Brazil and the west coast of Africa

You can see a comprehensive list of the extreme points of Chile on Wikipedia.

In the beginning of time, God created the wonders of the world. When he was finished, he saw that he had many leftover pieces. He had parts of rivers and valleys, of oceans and lakes, of glaciers and deserts, of mountains and forests, and of meadows and hills. Rather than let such beauty go to waste, God put them all together and cast them to the most remote corner of the Earth. This is how Chile was born.

The diversity of Chile’s geography and climates attest to the validity of this legend. Where else can you find both the driest desert on earth and huge ice glaciers? Chile is a land of contrasts and beauties found no where else on Earth.

In reference to the legend’s “remote corner of the earth” statement, many Chileans today refer to Chile as the “end of the world.”

In fact, a large part of Chile is found farther south than Australia or even South Africa which share the southern reaches of the globe’s Southern Hemisphere.

If you’re curious, Chile’s name also has an interesting origin.

The reason for this is that Chile claims a piece of Antarctica as Chilean territory. So naturally, they would report the weather for it just as they would any other part of the country.

Territory Claimed

The Chilean Antarctic Territory covers 1,236,000 km² and stretches south of the 60th parallel down to the South Pole.

Chilean Settlement

Chile has a permanent village, Villa Las Estrellas, which averages about 100 residents year around. This village has a church, school, post office, and bank, among other services.

History of the Claim

Wikipedia offers an interesting insight into why Chile holds firm to its claim:

According to the Chilean argument, its claim to the Antártica Chilena Province is as old as Chile itself. The Tordesilhas Line established a west/east division of colonial territories between Portugal and Spain. On the first organization of the new conquered territories, Charles V, ruler of the Spanish Empire assigned to Pedro Sancho de la Hoz control over Terra Australis, which included the Southern part of South America, Tierra del Fuego Archipelago, and all southern undiscovered territories (Terra Australis Ignota). This gobernation eventually merged with other territories in the Captaincy General of Chile.

Disputed Claim

Chile’s Antarctic claim is disputed by many international countries, some of which also claim parts of Antarctica.

Chile was an original signer of the Antarctic Treaty establishing international standards for regulating Antarctica.

Where is Alejandro Selkirk Island?

Alejandro Selkirk Island is the most westerly island of the Juan Fernández island chain. In fact, before 1966 the island was called “Isla Más Afuera” which literally means “Farthest Away Island.”

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Who was Alejandro Selkirk?

Alejandro Selkirk Island is named after a Scottish sailor who was marooned on the island in 1704 and survived for four more years before being rescued. His amazing story inspired Daniel Defoe’s novel, Robinson Crusoe.

Pictures of Alejandro Selkirk Island:

Here is an historic engraving of the Northwest side of Alejandro Selkirk Island (then Isla Más Afuera) from 1773:

More pictures:
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Island/1698/english/Fotos.html
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/7476562
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=Alejandro+Selkirk+isla

If you know some Spanish, you can read about Selkirk’s experience on the island.

Which Flag Came First?

Chile’s flag was born of a storied history and went through several versions before arriving at a form very similar to today’s in October, 1817:

Due to the complex design of this flag, it was soon there after simplified into the form we know today:

The Texas flag was officially adopted on January 24, 1839 as the final national flag of the Republic of Texas.

Chile’s flag predates the Texan flag by over 21 years and clearly came first.

What is the difference between flags?

The main difference between the Chile and Texas flags is the left side of the flag: the lone star on the blue background.

The blue vertical stripe on the Texas flag extends from the top to the bottom of the flag. The lone star sits in the middle of this area:

The Chilean flag, on the other hand, has its lone star in the upper left corner. The bottom red horizontal stripe, stretches the length of the flag:

I need to find out why the currency changed in Chile from the Escudo to the Chilean Peso in 1975.

According to the Banco Central de Chile (in Spanish):

Law #13.305 in 1959 replaced the peso with the escudo as the monetary unit starting January 1, 1960. A later law in March, 1960 put forth that the bills should express their value in escudos, centésimos and half centésimo and display Chile’s national seal.

In 1975 the peso was once again established as Chile’s monetary unit. According to the law #1.123, on August 4, 1975, starting on September 29th of that same year, the monetary unit of Chile was once again declared the official currency of the country. On that date, you could exchange one thousand escudos for one peso.

This article (in Spanish) talks a little about the economic policies of the Military Junta, including that they “changed the monetary system from the escudo to the peso” in 1975.

According to this history (in Spanish), the change from the escudo to the peso was also made to fight inflation, or at least reduce the appearance of its effects.