Because of its location along the west coast of South America, Chile is a country of geographical extremes. Although it is an extremely narrow country which is only 240 km across at its widest point, it is also over 4,300 km long, extending north to south down practically the entire west coast of South America. Because Chile is located between the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Andes to the east, elevations within the country also vary widely from sea level to the 6,893 meter peak of Ojos del Salado, which is the second highest mountain in South America.

It is therefore not surprising that Chile contains seven widely divergent climactic zones. While northern Chile is home to the driest desert on earth, the Atacama, parts of which are so dry that they have been compared to Mars, Easter Island in contrast has a wet subtropical climate, and receives an average of 1,118 mm of annual rainfall. Cape Horn, at the country’s subpolar southern tip, is even wetter, with 1,357 millimetres of rainfall every year.

Lying between these two extremes is the pleasant Mediterranean climate of Central Chile, which is home to Chile’s world-renowned wine industry. In the capital, Santiago, average monthly temperatures range from 19.5 °C in the summer to 7.5 °C in the winter, with a maximum rainfall of 69.7 millimeters in the winter months of June and July.

Moving southward through the country, the climate becomes gradually cooler and moister, eventually changing to a cool temperate oceanic climate which is demarcated by the Bío-Bío River. In this climactic zone temperatures range from 16.5°C (62°F) in the summer to 7°C (45°F) or less in the winter. The climate here is damp and foggy due to the combined effects of the west winds which blow moisture in across the Pacific and the cold, northward-flowing Humboldt Current.

The Chilean climate varies not only with latitude but also with elevation. While the high Andes tend to be cooler than the coastal areas, the Andes themselves are also divided in two climatic zones, the Dry Andes in the north, which extends from the Atacama Desert to the Maule River, and the Wet Andes in the south. As a result, latitude and elevation interact with each other in complex ways to form a diversity of microclimates, which can change dramatically within extremely short distances.

The snow line also changes dramatically from approximately 5,000 feet in the northern dry Andes to 980 ft in Tierra del Fuego in the far south, where several glaciers descend to sea level. Unfortunately, Chilean glaciers are not immune to global climate change, and Chilean scientists are predicting that shrinking glaciers in combination with higher temperature and reduced rainfall could in the future adversely impact both Chile’s water supply and its valuable wine industry.

Stretching across 38 degrees of latitude from the tropics to the subarctic, and rising from the ocean to the high Andes, Chile has an both amazing diversity of terrain and contrasting climactic extremes.