Santiago keeps Chile's palace while Congress sits by the sea
Santiago de Chile, capital and the country's largest city in the Central Valley between Andes and coastal range, has been inhabited since at least the tenth millennium BC along the Mapocho. Pedro de Valdivia founded Santiago del Nuevo Extremo in 1541 for Extremadura and Saint James.
Hunter-gatherers first reached the basin around the tenth millennium BC, following guanaco herds inland from the coast as Andean snow melted. By about 800 AD farmers had settled along the Mapocho, growing maize, potatoes and beans and keeping llama-like camelids. From the late fifteenth century these Picunche villages, called Promaucae by the Incas, fell under Inca rule; the Incas planted a colony of settlers in what is now the centre, built fortifications such as Huaca de Chena and a sanctuary on El Plomo, and, according to historian Armando de Ramón, used the valley as a base for unsuccessful campaigns southward.
Pedro de Valdivia, a conquistador from Extremadura sent south from Peru by Francisco Pizarro, arrived from Cusco on 13 December 1540 and camped on the slopes of Tupahue hill. He founded the city on 12 February 1541 beside a hill called Huelén, which he renamed Santa Lucía, and master builder Pedro de Gamboa laid out a grid of eight blocks by ten around a central plaza with plots for the cathedral, jail and governor's house. The Mapuche adapted the Spanish name as Santiaw.
The settlement nearly died at birth. With Valdivia away campaigning in the south, a Mapuche and Picunche coalition under the chief Michimalonco destroyed it on 11 September 1541 despite a garrison of 55 soldiers led in defence by Inés de Suárez, and it had to be rebuilt slowly. Floods, food shortages and a severe earthquake in 1647 followed.
Today Greater Santiago spans more than forty communes and holds over a third of Chileans and about 45 percent of national output. Its enclosed valley gives dramatic Andes views but traps winter smog, and the United Nations economic commission for Latin America keeps its regional headquarters here.
Source: Santiago
