Chile Case

Located on the west coast of South America, Chile is a rather long narrow country that occupies 289,112 square miles of mostly mountainous terrain. Chile is situated west of Bolivia and Argentina and south of Peru and stretches all the way to the southern tip of South America. One Third of Chile is covered by the Andes. The Atacama Desert is located in northern Chile and is considered to be the driest place on earth. Most of Chile's people are located in the 700 mile long valley that runs through the center of the country.

Originally, Chile was controlled by the Incas in the North and Araucanos in the South. Pedro de Valdivia, a Spaniard, founded Santiago in 1541 which is now Chile's largest city. Finally, in 1818 Chile won its independence under the control of Bernardo O'Higgins and an Argentinian named, Jose de San Martin. O'Higgins was Chile's dictator until 1823 and set in place Chile's modern two-party system and centralized government. In 1891 Pedro Montt led a revolt to overthrow Jose Balmaceda to establish a parliamentary dictatorship until 1925 when a new constitution was adopted.

Chile has many exports, including forestry, wood products, fresh food and seafood, but the most popular Chilean export is copper. Chile has some of the world's largest and most successful copper mines in the world. Having this title doesn't come without a price and there is one event that occurred on August 5, 2010 that will live in infamy forever. On this horrifying day, 33 miners became trapped after the mine collapsed around them. These men were trapped underground for 69 days with little to no food or water. As the men waited to be rescued, people drilled a small hole 2,000 feet down to provide the men with food, water, lights and even notes from their families. After nearly 70 days of being trapped, the men were lifted out one by one through a small tunnel that held a rescue capsule. After this terrifying ordeal the miners were hailed as national heroes throughout Chile.

The reason I chose Chile, is because all throughout middle school and high school I had to take Spanish. In every single Spanish class I had we always had to map Mexico, Central and South America. Even after all the quizzes and tests I still only remembered where Mexico, Panama and Chile were located. Out of these three Chile seems the most interesting to me because I have always loved the mountains and most of Chile is covered by the