Capital Santiago
Largest city Santiago
Official language(s) Spanish
Population
16,432,674
Currency Peso
Calling code +56

There are diverse theories about the root of the word Chile. According to one hypothesis the Incas of Peru, who had gave way to conquer the Araucanians, known as the valley of the Aconcagua "Chili" by corruptness of the name of a tribal chief ("cacique") named Tili, who found the area at the time of the Incan conquering. Another theory points to the similarity of the valley of the Aconcagua by having that of the Casma Valley in Peru, where At that place was a town and valley appointed Chili.

Other hypotheses say Chile may derive its name Derived from the indigenous Mapuche word chilli, which one may mean "where the land ends" or "the deepest point of the Earth," or from the Aymara tchili substance "snow" A second meaning attributed to chilli is the onomatopoetic cheele-cheele-the Mapuche imitation of a bird call. The Spanish conquistadors found out about this name since the Incas & the Few survivors of Diego de Almagro's first Spanish expedition south caused by Peru in 1535-36 named themselves the "men of Chilli."

Northern Chile was an significant center of culture in the mediaeval & early modern Inca empire. Afterwards, their culture was dominated by the Spanish during the Colonial and early Republican period. More European influences, principally English and French, began in the 19th century and have retained till now, as in Other Western societies.

The interior dance is the cueca. Another form of traditional Chilean song, though not a dance, is the tonada. Standing up from music imported by the Spanish settlers, it is distinguished from the cueca by an medium melodic section and a more prominent melody. In the mid-1960s native musical forms were regenerated by the Parra family sustaining the Nueva Cancion Chilena, which one was connected with political activists and reformers, and by the folk vocalist and investigator on folklore and Chilean ethnography, Margot Loyola.

Chileans call their country pais de poetas 'land of poets'. Gabriela Mistral was the 1st Chilean to gain a Nobel Prize for Literature (1945). Chile's most notable poet, nevertheless, is Pablo Neruda, who also won the Nobel Prize (1971) and is world-renowned for his extensive library of works on romance, nature, and politics. His three extremely individualistic homes, located in Isla Negra, Santiago & Valparaiso are popular tourist destinations.

Language

Chilean Spanish is notoriously hard for foreigners to understand due to the dropping down of final syllables and 's' sounds, the super soft pronunciation of occasionally consonants and the high levels of slang employed, especially in Santiago and the surrounding areas. Chileans likewise tend to speak much faster than natives of neighboring states.

These factors all contribute to newly came visitors to the country, even proficient Spanish speakers, hearing no more than indecipherable mumbles in former encounters with locals. Books have been written (such as 'How to survive in the Chilean Jungle' by John Brennan and Alvaro Taboada) which one effort to detail and explain the difficulties and idiosyncrasies of Chilean Spanish.