🇨🇱 Chile · Central Chile and Santiago
Santiago de Chile is one of those capitals that surprises anyone who arrives with low expectations. Hemmed into a valley at the foot of the Andes, the city offers a postcard that's hard to match: glass skyscrapers cut against snow-covered peaks, wide tree-lined avenues, island hills rising between the neighborhoods and a sky that, on clear days, hands back all the majesty of the Andes. It's a modern, orderly, thriving metropolis that nonetheless keeps colonial corners, squares with history and a warm, thoroughly enjoyable neighborhood life.
Santiago is contrast. It's the historic center around the Plaza de Armas, with the Cathedral and the Palacio de La Moneda; it's the bohemia of Bellavista at the foot of Cerro San Cristóbal, with its murals, bars and Pablo Neruda's house; it's the heritage and cultural charm of the Lastarria neighborhood; it's the bustle and the smells of the Mercado Central and La Vega; and it's also modern Santiago in Providencia, Las Condes and the financial district nicknamed 'Sanhattan', crowned by the Gran Torre, the tallest skyscraper in South America. All of it coexists with a booming food scene and with wine culture, which has some of the world's most acclaimed wineries in the nearby valleys.
This guide covers the essentials of Santiago with a practical, warm eye: which hills to climb to have the city at your feet, which museums and neighborhoods not to miss, how to get around on one of the region's best metro systems, where to eat and drink good wine, and which day trips are worth it (from the Maipo wineries to the Cajón del Maipo, by way of Valparaíso). Santiago is the ideal launching point for seeing Chile, but it's also a city that deserves days of its own and that rewards a little planning.
Long before the Spanish arrived, the valley of the Mapocho river was inhabited by Picunche communities, farmers who spoke Mapudungun, and the influence of the Inca Empire had reached this far in its expansion southward. The city was founded by the Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia on 12 February 1541, under the name Santiago del Nuevo Extremo, on a strategic site between two arms of the Mapocho, beside the hill of Huelén, which the Spanish renamed Santa Lucía. A few months later, in September 1541, an Indigenous uprising led by the chief Michimalonco almost completely destroyed the newborn city, which was rebuilt with enormous effort, in large part thanks to Inés de Suárez. During the colonial era, Santiago grew slowly as the administrative center of the Captaincy General of Chile, shaped by earthquakes and by the flooding of the Mapocho. In 1810 it was the cradle of the independence movement, and after independence it consolidated as the capital of the Republic. The 19th century and the early 20th transformed it: the railway arrived, along with grand public buildings, parks and the channeling of the Mapocho. In the 20th century it saw strong growth and modernization, but also the most painful episode in its history: the coup d'état of 11 September 1973, with the bombing of La Moneda, the death of President Salvador Allende and the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, remembered today at the Museo de la Memoria. With the return of democracy in 1990, Santiago became the modern, vertical, cosmopolitan metropolis it is today. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The political and economic heart of Chile: Santiago, founded in 1541 at the foot of the Andes, with the La Moneda palace and the canalised Mapocho River; pottery villages such as Pomaire; the mountain country of the Cajón del Maipo; and the world-class ski resorts of the Tres Valles.
Read the history of Santiago Metropolitan Region →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The hill that tourists climb today to photograph downtown Santiago — Santa Lucía — had another name and another weight before any Spaniard arrived: the Indigenous peoples called it Huelén, usually translated as 'pain' or 'melancholy'. Chile's capital would be born at its foot, but long before any city existed, the valley through which the Mapocho river runs was inhabited by Indigenous communities who lived from farming, making use of the river's waters and the fertile soils of the basin. They were Mapudungun-speaking peoples, known generically as Picunches ('people of the north' in Mapudungun), who grew maize, beans, potatoes and squash in small villages scattered across the valley.
Toward the 15th century, the expansion of the Inca Empire reached this region on its push south through the continent. The Incas established their influence in the Mapocho valley, which lay around the southern limit of the Tahuantinsuyo, and set up administrative centers and roads linking the area with the rest of the empire. There are traces of that Inca presence around present-day Santiago, and it's thought that the site of the future city already held a certain importance as a waypoint and settlement.
In the heart of the valley rose a small rocky hill that the Indigenous peoples called Huelén. At its foot, between two arms of the Mapocho river, lay a strategic, defensible spot that years later the Spanish conquistadors would choose to found their city. The memory of those original inhabitants and of Inca influence was largely buried under the colonial grid, but it forms the first chapter in the history of the place.
The city of Santiago was born of the conquest enterprise that the Extremaduran Pedro de Valdivia launched southward from Peru. After a punishing crossing of the Atacama Desert with a handful of Spanish soldiers and a large contingent of Indigenous auxiliaries, Valdivia reached the Mapocho valley, which he judged an ideal place to settle for its temperate climate, its fertile land and its defensible position beside the river and Cerro Huelén.
On 12 February 1541, Pedro de Valdivia formally founded the city under the name Santiago del Nuevo Extremo, in honor of the apostle St James, patron of Spain, and of his native Extremadura. Following the Spanish urban model, a regular grid of streets was laid out around a central square — today's Plaza de Armas — where the plots for the church, the town council and the houses of the leading conquistadors were assigned. The site was protected between two arms of the Mapocho, in what is now the historic center.
The newborn city faced its first great test almost immediately. On 11 September 1541, taking advantage of Valdivia's absence, Indigenous forces led by the chief Michimalonco attacked and almost completely destroyed Santiago, burning its makeshift buildings. Inés de Suárez, Valdivia's companion, played a decisive role in the defense and is remembered for her courage that day. The city was rebuilt at enormous cost and, despite the hardships of those first years, managed to take root and become the center of the Spanish conquest of Chile.
Through the colonial centuries, Santiago grew slowly as the capital of the Captaincy General of Chile, one of the most southerly and, at the time, poorest and most isolated possessions of the Spanish Empire in the Americas. The economy revolved around farming, livestock and trade, and society was organized around the main square, the Cathedral, the town council and the houses of the leading families. The frontier with the Mapuche people, further south, shaped much of Chile's colonial history, with long periods of war.
Life in Santiago was permanently threatened by two forces of nature. The first was earthquakes: the city stands in a zone of extremely high seismic activity, and across its history it has been struck by major quakes (such as those of 1647, 1730 and 1751, among others) that destroyed churches and buildings and forced reconstruction time and again. That is why many structures, such as the Cathedral, were raised several times on the same site. The second threat was the flooding of the Mapocho river, which when it burst its banks inundated the city and caused havoc, until major works were undertaken to channel it.
At the end of the 18th century, the arrival of the Italian architect Joaquín Toesca left a decisive mark on the look of Santiago: the Metropolitan Cathedral, the Palacio de La Moneda (originally conceived as a mint) and the Tajamares del Mapocho, the works meant to contain the river, are all his. These neoclassical buildings marked the shift from a colonial town to a more monumental capital, right on the eve of independence.
Santiago was the main stage of Chile's independence process. On 18 September 1810, the First National Government Junta was formed in the city, an event that marks the start of the road to emancipation and that is commemorated as Chile's national holiday. After the years of the Patria Vieja, the Spanish Reconquest and the patriot victory, independence was secured, and Santiago established itself as the capital of the new Republic of Chile.
Through the 19th century the city went through a remarkable transformation, especially in its second half, when the prosperity of mining (silver and, later, nitrate) filled the country with resources. Santiago filled up with the institutions, palaces and public spaces proper to a modern capital. A key figure was the city governor Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, who in the 1870s drove an ambitious plan of beautification and modernization: he turned the barren Cerro Santa Lucía into a beautiful romantic park, improved streets and services, and promoted urban works that changed the face of the city.
In these decades emblematic buildings went up and grand promenades were laid out, such as the Alameda. The railway arrived, along with street lighting, drinking water and trams, and theaters, museums and mansions of the newly enriched aristocracy were built. The definitive channeling of the Mapocho river, at the end of the 19th century, put an end to the old danger of flooding and made it possible to create walkways along its banks. Santiago was leaving its colonial appearance behind to become a cosmopolitan capital looking toward Europe.
Through the 20th century, Santiago grew explosively. Migration from the countryside to the city, industrialization and a rising population turned the capital into a great metropolis that spilled far beyond its old historic core. New districts appeared, working-class and residential neighborhoods, and the gap began to open between the wealthier eastern sector and the working-class areas. The city lived an intense political, social and cultural life, fitting for a country that was widening its democracy and its rights.
The most painful and decisive episode in Santiago's recent history came on 11 September 1973. That day, a coup d'état led by the armed forces overthrew the government of the democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende. The Palacio de La Moneda, the seat of government, was bombed from the air, and President Allende died inside it. So began the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, which would last until 1990 and would be marked by grave and systematic human rights violations: arrests, torture, executions, disappearances and the exile of thousands of people, events remembered today at the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos.
The dictatorship also drove a deep change in the country's economic model, with consequences visible in the city. After a long process of opposition and mobilization, the 1988 plebiscite opened the way back to democracy: in 1990 a civilian government took office and Santiago returned to institutional normality. The memory of those years remains a central theme in the life and identity of the city and the country.
With the return of democracy in 1990, Santiago entered a phase of accelerated modernization that turned it into the thriving, cosmopolitan metropolis it is today. The Chilean economy grew strongly over the following decades, and that prosperity showed in the face of the city: new neighborhoods, major infrastructure works, urban motorways and a constant expansion of the Santiago Metro, which became one of the best and most extensive transport systems in Latin America.
The most visible symbol of this transformation is the skyline of the eastern sector, around Providencia and Las Condes, where a financial district of skyscrapers nicknamed 'Sanhattan' went up. It was there that the Gran Torre Santiago was built, part of the Costanera Center complex, opened in the 2010s and recognized as the tallest building in South America, with its Sky Costanera viewing deck open to the public. The city also built a vibrant food and cultural scene and neighborhoods such as Lastarria and Bellavista, and established itself as Chile's gateway for tourism.
Like any big city, contemporary Santiago lives with its challenges: inequality between districts, air pollution during the basin's winters, congestion and the social tensions that, at various moments, have been expressed in large citizen mobilizations concentrated in the center of the capital. Despite it all, Santiago remains a fascinating city, where the weight of history, modern energy and the imposing backdrop of the Andes combine to offer the traveler a unique experience in the heart of Chile.