| Chile is a long, tapered stretch of land in the southwest of Latin America, between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean. It borders Peru in the north, Bolivia and Argentina in the east, the Antarctic in the south, and the Pacific Ocean in the west. Its extensive length of 2,700 miles offers a huge variety of landscapes and climates throughout its territory, from the Atacama Desert, the driest in the world, in the far north to Patagonia’s glaciers in the south. The southernmost point of Chile offers all one could expect from the true end of the world, as the South American continent falls away in a dazzling explosion of islands, glaciers, icebergs, and mountains. The terrain of the country is mountainous – only one fifth of Chile’s surface is flat. The imposing Cordillera de Los Andes is like the backbone of Chile. The climate of the central zone is mild and warm, with rainfall increasing in the south, where it feeds the millennial-old forests of the Lake District. The Patagonian south is icy and cold with strong winds, and the Chilean Pacific islands – Easter Island and the Juan Fernandez archipelago – enjoy warm and subtropical climates. The seasons follow the typical pattern of the Southern Hemisphere, with winter in the months of June-August and summer from December-February.
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