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Chile Geography 2014

SOURCE: 2014 CIA WORLD FACTBOOK AND OTHER SOURCES











Chile Geography 2014
SOURCE: 2014 CIA WORLD FACTBOOK AND OTHER SOURCES


Page last updated on January 31, 2014

Location: Southern South America, bordering the South Pacific Ocean, between Argentina and Peru

Geographic coordinates:
30 00 S, 71 00 W

Map references:
South America

Area:
total: 756,102 sq km
[see also: Area - total country ranks ]
country comparison to the world: 38
land: 743,812 sq km
water: 12,290 sq km
note: includes Easter Island (Isla de Pascua) and Isla Sala y Gomez

Area - comparative:
slightly smaller than twice the size of Montana

Land boundaries:
total: 6,339 km
border countries: Argentina 5,308 km, Bolivia 860 km, Peru 171 km
[see also: Land boundaries country ranks ]

Coastline:
6,435 km
[see also: Coastline country ranks ]

Maritime claims:
territorial sea: 12 nm
contiguous zone: 24 nm
exclusive economic zone: 200 nm
continental shelf: 200/350 nm

Climate:
temperate; desert in north; Mediterranean in central region; cool and damp in south
More Climate Details

Terrain:
low coastal mountains; fertile central valley; rugged Andes in east

Elevation extremes:
lowest point: Pacific Ocean 0 m
[see also: Elevation extremes - lowest point country ranks ]
highest point: Nevado Ojos del Salado 6,880 m

Natural resources:
copper, timber, iron ore, nitrates, precious metals, molybdenum, hydropower

Land use:
arable land: 1.74%
[see also: Land use - arable land country ranks ]
permanent crops: 0.6%
other: 97.65% (2011)

Irrigated land:
11,990 sq km (2003)
[see also: Irrigated land country ranks ]

Total renewable water resources:
922 cu km (2011)
[see also: Total renewable water resources country ranks ]

Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural):
total: 26.67 cu km/yr (4%/10%/86%)
[see also: Freshwater withdrawal (domestic/industrial/agricultural) - total country ranks ]
per capita: 1,603 cu m/yr (2007)

Natural hazards:
severe earthquakes; active volcanism; tsunamis
volcanism: significant volcanic activity due to more than three-dozen active volcanoes along the Andes Mountains; Lascar (elev. 5,592 m), which last erupted in 2007, is the most active volcano in the northern Chilean Andes; Llaima (elev. 3,125 m) in central Chile, which last erupted in 2009, is another of the country's most active; Chaiten's 2008 eruption forced major evacuations; other notable historically active volcanoes include Cerro Hudson, Copahue, Guallatiri, Llullaillaco, Nevados de Chillan, Puyehue, San Pedro, and Villarrica

Environment - current issues:
widespread deforestation and mining threaten natural resources; air pollution from industrial and vehicle emissions; water pollution from raw sewage

Environment - international agreements:
party to: Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources, Antarctic Seals, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands, Whaling
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements

Geography - note:
the longest north-south trending country in the world, extending across 38 degrees of latitude; strategic location relative to sea lanes between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (Strait of Magellan, Beagle Channel, Drake Passage); Atacama Desert - the driest desert in the world - spreads across the northern part of the country; the crater lake of Ojos del Salado is the world's highest lake (at 6,390 m)


NOTE: 1) The information regarding Chile on this page is re-published from the 2014 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Chile Geography 2014 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Chile Geography 2014 should be addressed to the CIA.
2) The rank that you see is the CIA reported rank, which may habe the following issues:
  a) They assign increasing rank number, alphabetically for countries with the same value of the ranked item, whereas we assign them the same rank.
  b) The CIA sometimes assignes counterintuitive ranks. For example, it assigns unemployment rates in increasing order, whereas we rank them in decreasing order






This page was last modified 06-Nov-14
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