Chile Demographics

Mestizaje, the blending of races resulting from centuries of migration, explains why over 70% of Chile’s 15 million residents are mestizos, a racial mixture of Europeans and indígenas. Unfortunately, Chileans maintain an ambivalent attitude toward their native heritage—while indigenous culture is celebrated, Chileans tend to consider indigenous people inferior, and instances of neglect, disrespect, and mistreatment are not rare. Indigenous communities still constitute about 3% of the population: 40,000 Aymara inhabit the northern areas bordering Bolivia; Araucanians reside in the south of the country, especially around Temuco; and several thousand Mapuche populate the Central Valley. In recent years, the Mapuche have been organizing to preserve their language and traditions—prepare to be engulfed in traditional ceremonial rituals like the ñgillatun celebration, the great festival of crops and fertility. If passing through Osorno and Temuco, look out for the most visible members of Chile’s society—cowboys. Intent on maintaining a separate identity from Argentina’s mythical gauchos, Chilean cowboys, huasos, still work on ranches and sport impressive attire.

Descendants of 19th-century European migrants—most notably German settlers—make up a significant portion of the residents of Los Lagos. Valdivia, with its own German newspaper, resembles a German city and brews German beer, while Osorno manifests distinct German influences. Arrivals from the former Yugoslavia also populate a good portion of Chilean society. Chile’s Croatian population is the fifth-largest in the world, consisting of both a native and first-generation population. Middle Eastern migrants are now respected members of the Chilean business community and dominate financial circles and manufacturing operations. Christian communities from Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine escaped to Chile at the time of the devolution of the Ottoman Empire. Consequently, since their ports of embarkation were under Turkish control, migrants with a Middle Eastern heritage are commonly, although incorrectly, referred to as turcos (Turks). Since a tropical plantation economy never developed, Chile was removed from the African slave trade, and there is little significant black population or culture in Chile.

Despite these multi-faceted demographics, there is a strong sense of a unified Chilean identity, provided by the homogenizing influence of the prevalent Spanish language, the Roman Catholic religion, a pride in the Chilean literary tradition, and Chile’s relative isolation from bordering South American countries.