It is Chile's oldest and most prestigious school.

Chile's legal system is civil law based.

Chile's approach to foreign direct investment is codified in the country's Foreign Investment Law, which gives foreign investors the same treatment as Chileans.

* November 14 – Chile's National Library of Congress is founded.

Copper is Chile's single most important export ( more than half of Chile's export receipts were from this sole commodity ).

Chile's territorial shape is among the world's most unusual.

Chile's northern neighbors are Peru and Bolivia, and its border with Argentina to the east, at, is the world's third longest.

More than half of Chile's land surface is volcanic in origin.

Much of Chile's coastline is rugged, with surf that seems to explode against the rocks lying at the feet of high bluffs.

The best known of Chile's Pacific Islands is Easter Island ( Isla de Pascua, also known by its Polynesian name of Rapa Nui ), with a population of 2, 800 people.

As seen in this SeaWiFS image Chile's southern coast is broken into many islands, Fjords and channels of Chile | fjords, channels and twisting peninsulas.

Although Santiago is Chile's official capital, the National Congress of Chile was established in Valparaíso in 1990.

The II Antofagasta Region () is one of Chile's fifteen first-order administrative divisions.

The Atacama Region () is one of Chile's 15 first order administrative divisions.

The IV Coquimbo Region () is one of Chile's 15 first order administrative divisions.

The V Valparaíso Region () is one of Chile's 15 first order administrative divisions.

With the country's third highest population of 1, 539, 852 million in 2002 and third smallest area of, the region is Chile's second most densely populated after the Santiago Metropolitan Region to the southeast.

Chile's largest oil refinery is located in Concón ( on the mouth of the Aconcagua River and about 20 km north of Valparaíso ) and there are two important copper ore refineries: the state owned Ventanas ( on the coast and north of Concón ) and the private works in Chagres, about 55 miles ( 90 km ) inland.

In addition to football ( soccer ), basketball is particularly popular in southern Chile, where it as an indoor sport can be played all year round despite Southern Chile's cold and rainy winters.

Santiago Metropolitan Region or simply Metropolitan Region () is one of Chile's 15 first order administrative divisions.

With an area of and population over 6 million, it is Chile's smallest by area, most populated and most densely populated region.

Metropolitana is Chile's only landlocked region and lies in the Intermediate Depression valley between the Chilean Coast Range and the Andes mountains.

According to the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom ( of the Heritage Foundation, Fraser Institute and WSJ ), Chile's economy is the 10th freest.

Chile's independent Central Bank pursues an inflation target of between 2 % and 4 %.

The archipelago administratively belongs to Chile's Valparaíso Region ( which also includes Easter Island ), and more specifically forms one of the nine communes ( comunas ) of the Valparaíso Province named Juan Fernández.

Its topography includes a small area of Chile's central valley, glaciers, rivers, volcanoes, and the Andes range, which forms the border with Argentina.

Chile's congressional elections are governed by a unique binomial system that rewards coalition slates.

Chile's private pension system, with assets worth roughly $ 70 billion at the end of 2006, has been an important source of investment capital for the capital market.

These successes allowed the government to concentrate in 1996 and 1997 on major structural reforms such as the implementation of a fully funded pension system ( partly modelled after Chile's pension system with major modifications ), reform of higher education, and the creation of a national treasury.

A panoply of provincial and municipal banks were sold to financial giants abroad ( sometimes over the opposition of their respective governors and mayors ) and, taking a page from Chile's successful experiment, the mandatory state pensions system was opened to choice through the authorization of for private pension schemes.

Nowadays, the city of Chillán is connected to Chile's capital Santiago by both a modern highway and a rebuilt railway system that makes the trip in less than five hours.

In their latest " Ideological Congress ", the Christian Democrats criticized Chile's free market economy and called for changes in the economic system into a vaguely defined " social market economy " ( economía social de mercado ).

Chile's wine laws are more similar to the US appellation system than to France's Appellation d ' origine contrôlée that most of Europe has based their wine laws on.

Chile's system went into effect in 1995 and established the boundaries of the country's wine regions and established regulations for wine labels.

The architect of Chile's private pension system based on personal retirement accounts.

Chile's congressional elections are governed by a unique binomial system that rewards coalition slates.

* José Piñera, Chilean economist, architect of Chile's private pension system

José Piñera is the architect of Chile's private pension system based on personal retirement accounts.

On November 4, 1980, Chile's legislature passed Piñera's Social Security Reform ( D. L 3. 500 and D. L 3. 501 ) proposal, that allowed workers to opt out of the government-run pension system and instead put the former payroll tax ( 10 % of wages ) in a privately managed Personal Retirement Account ( PRA ).

These measures resulted in a privatization of Chile's social security system.

Beer saw this as a unique opportunity to implement his ideas of cybernetic management on a national scale, and also sympathized with the stated ideals of Chilean socialism, which aimed to maintain Chile's democratic system and the autonomy of workers instead of imposing a Soviet-style system of top-down command and control.

* José Piñera ( Architect of Chile's private pension system )