Chile is a long and narrow country on the southwest coast of South America and extends for approximately 2,800 miles (4,500 km) from north to south. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the east by the Andes Mountains and the country of Argentina. Much of Chile has a Mediterranean-like climate, with an extremely dry desert in the north (Atacama) and a cold and wet landscape to the south (Tierra del Fuego - Juan Fernandez Archipelago). Santiago, the capital, has a climate similar to that of Los Angeles, California. The Lake District, near the cities of Valdivia and Puerto Montt, has a climate similar to the Pacific Northwest: lots of rain.
Continental Chile is isolated biologically on the north by the Atacama desert, to the east by the Andes, and to the south and west by oceans. This area contains diverse vegetation types, including hyperarid desert, summer-dry scrublands (chaparral), the dry cold puna of the high Andes, and temperate rainforest. The Chilean flora includes about 5,000 species of vascular plants. About 49% of the native species are estimated to be endemic to Chile; this proportion is expected for oceanic islands but unusually high for a continental area.
The photographs in the following pages were taken at four general locations in Chile: Santiago; Yerba Loca Nature Santuary in the Andes east of Santiago; in the Cochamó Valley east of Puerto Montt in the Lake District; and in Puyehue National Park, also in the Lake District. These photographs were taken between 13 and 29 December 2004.
All photographs copyrighted by David L. Magney 2004
