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60 free Chile trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
58 free Chile trivia questions with answers. Chile is 4,300 km long and rarely more than a couple of hours' drive wide, and it packs the driest desert on Earth, the biggest earthquake ever measured, a Polynesian island of stone giants and two Nobel-winning poets into that strip. This Chile trivia quiz covers all of it. Fifty-eight questions move from geography (the Atacama, Ojos del Salado, the Juan Fernández islands, the Antarctic claim) through the Mapuche, Pedro de Valdivia and the founding of Santiago, the road to independence with O'Higgins and San Martín, the War of the Pacific, the 1973 coup, the 1988 plebiscite that ended Pinochet, and the twenty-first century of Bachelet, Boric, the 33 miners and the constitutional votes. Then it turns to copper and Codelco, wine and salmon, Neruda, Mistral and Isabel Allende, the cueca, Colo-Colo, Marcelo Ríos and the two Copa América titles. About a third of the questions are ones any traveller or geography fan will get; the rest reward people who know the country well. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia and reference pages before it went in.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Roughly how long is Chile from north to south?
4,300 km
At its widest it is only 350 km across, and the average width is about 175 km, so most Chileans live within sight of either the Andes or the sea.
Q 02Which Chilean desert is the driest in the world?
Atacama
Some weather stations there have never recorded rain, and it also has the highest solar irradiation on Earth, which is why the big observatories and solar farms are there.
Q 03What is Chile's highest peak, at about 6,891 metres?
Nevado Ojos del Salado
It is also the highest active volcano in the world; Aconcagua, the continent's highest mountain, is just across the border in Argentina.
Q 04How much of Antarctica does Chile claim as its own territory?
About 1,250,000 km²
The claim overlaps with those of Argentina and Britain; all are frozen by the Antarctic Treaty, and Chile calls itself the closest country to Antarctica.
Q 05The Juan Fernández Islands, which inspired Robinson Crusoe, lie how far from the mainland?
More than 600 km
Sailor Alexander Selkirk was marooned there for four years from 1704, and the main island is now officially named Robinson Crusoe Island.
Q 06What is Chile's national flower?
The copihue
It is a red, bell-shaped climbing flower of the southern forests, and it appears in Mapuche legend as the tears of a princess.
Q 07The pudu, found in Chile's southern forests, is a small kind of what animal?
Deer
At around 40 cm at the shoulder it is one of the smallest deer in the world, and shares the forest with several species of marsupial.
Q 08Which ocean current makes Chile's coastal waters so rich in fish?
Humboldt
Its cold, nutrient-rich upwelling also keeps the coast foggy and cool, and it feeds Chile's giant fishing industries.
Q 09According to the 2024 census, roughly what is Chile's population?
18.5 million
Around 40% of them live in the capital's metropolitan area, packed into the small Central Valley.
Q 10One theory derives the name 'Chile' from the Mapuche word chilli, meaning what?
Where the land ends
Rival theories point to the Quechua chiri, 'cold', a Picunche chief named Tili, and even the call of a local bird; the survivors of Almagro's 1535 expedition called themselves the 'men of Chilli'.
Q 11Pedro de Valdivia, who founded Chile's capital, had served as a lieutenant to which conquistador?
Francisco Pizarro
He founded the city on 12 February 1541 and was later killed by the Mapuche, whose resistance kept them autonomous for another three centuries.
Q 12In what year was Chile's capital founded?
1541
Valdivia named it Santiago del Nuevo Extremo; the Mapuche burned it to the ground within months and it had to be rebuilt.
Q 13By what name did the Spaniards know the Mapuche people?
Araucanians
They resisted the Inca and then the Spanish for centuries; the epic poem La Araucana was written by a Spanish soldier who fought them.
Q 21The late-19th-century campaign that ended Mapuche autonomy is known as what?
Occupation of Araucanía
Chile pushed south of the Biobío River in the 1860s to 1880s while Argentina did the same on its side of the Andes.
Q 22Which Pacific territory did Chile take possession of in September 1888?
Easter Island
Naval officer Policarpo Toro signed the agreement with the Rapa Nui king Atamu Tekena; the island is more than 3,500 km from the mainland.
Q 23The nearly 1,000 moai of Rapa Nui were carved from tuff quarried at which volcanic crater?
Rano Raraku
Hundreds of unfinished statues still lie in the quarry, and many finished ones once wore red-scoria topknots called pukao.
Q 14Chile's Fiestas Patrias on 18 September commemorate what event of 1810?
The formation of the first governing junta
The junta still swore loyalty to the deposed Spanish king; full independence took another eight years, but the Fiestas Patrias are celebrated on this date.
Q 15Which patriot led the early independence movement alongside his brothers Juan José and Luis?
José Miguel Carrera
He ended up imprisoned across the Andes while his rival O'Higgins finished the war, and was executed there in 1821.
Q 16Which Argentine general crossed the Andes with O'Higgins to defeat the royalists in Chile?
José de San Martín
The Army of the Andes made the crossing in early 1817 and won at Chacabuco; independence was proclaimed the following February.
Q 17In what year was Chile proclaimed an independent republic?
1818
The proclamation came on 12 February, the anniversary of both the founding of the capital and the Battle of Chacabuco.
Q 18Which minister shaped the conservative Constitution of 1833 that stabilised the young republic?
Diego Portales
He never became president but ran the government from behind the scenes until his assassination in 1837.
Q 19Which country lost its entire Pacific coastline to Chile in the War of the Pacific (1879–83)?
Bolivia
Chile grew by almost a third and gained the nitrate fields that bankrolled the next fifty years; the loss is still a live grievance in La Paz.
Q 20The 1881 boundary treaty with which country confirmed Chile's sovereignty over the Strait of Magellan?
Argentina
Chile had planted a settlement on the strait back in 1843 to make sure of it; the border along the Andes has been argued over ever since.
Q 24Jacob Roggeveen reached Rapa Nui in 1722 on which holiday, giving it its English name?
Easter Sunday
He arrived on 5 April 1722; the nearest inhabited neighbour is Pitcairn, over 2,000 km away.
Q 25Chile and the United States nearly went to war in 1891 over an incident named after which US Navy ship?
USS Baltimore
Two American sailors were killed in a Valparaíso bar brawl; Washington demanded an apology and Chile eventually paid an indemnity.
Q 26The 1960 Valdivia earthquake, the most powerful ever recorded, measured roughly what magnitude?
9.5
Its tsunami crossed the Pacific to hit Hawaii and Japan, and 38 hours later the Cordón Caulle volcano erupted.
Q 27What was the magnitude of the earthquake that struck Chile on 27 February 2010?
8.8
It was the fifth-largest ever recorded at the time; most of the 500-plus deaths came from the tsunami that followed.
Q 28How many miners were trapped at the San José mine near Copiapó in August 2010?
33
They were found alive 17 days after the collapse and all were brought to the surface on 13 October, watched by a global TV audience.
Q 29How many days after the San José mine collapsed were the trapped men located alive?
17
A drill probe came back with a note taped to it reading 'We are well in the shelter, the 33 of us'.
Q 30In 1970, which senator became president after winning a plurality in a three-way race?
Salvador Allende
He was a Socialist and a doctor; Congress confirmed him, and his government moved to nationalise the copper mines.