As humanity, we have always been curious about the world we live in. Since history, we have made geographical discoveries and discovered new continents, settled in certain places and named them ‘countries’. We have set political borders on the world map for these countries through wars or agreements.
There are some borders, it seems quite reasonable to the eye, but the borders of some countries are really astonishing when you see them. Perhaps the strangest of these is Chile, located on the South American continent.
It’s as if Chile’s border was drawn so that Argentina would not have a coastline to the west.
The coastline of Chile, which contains almost all of the western coast of the South American continent, is 6,435 km long. The sea connected to this coastline is known as the Chilean Sea, and Chile has exclusive rights and sovereignty over this sea area.
Located in the south of Peru, southwest of Bolivia and west of Argentina, this long country has no coastline to the west and south of Argentina, due to its borders. A very large part of the western coastline of the South American continent and the entire southern coast are within the borders of Şile.
So why are Chile’s borders so long?
Chile was a country under Spanish colonial rule until 1810. Napoleon’s army invaded Spain in 1808 and defeated King VII of Spain. With the capture of Ferdinand, sparks of revolution began in Spain’s colonies in America.
Chilean revolutionaries declared their independence from Spain on September 18, 1810. Chile’s borders at the time of this event were equal to one-third of what they are now (~2,100 km). In 1880 Chile was victorious in the Pacific War against Peru and Bolivia and annexed Peru’s Southern coast and Bolivia’s entire Pacific coast.
We get the length, so why is Chile so short latitude?
Chile may be the tallest country, yes, but it is also the ‘thinnest’ country. The latitudinal length of Chile is only 177 kilometers. The reason for this is the Andes Mountain in South America. This longitudinal mountain caused Argentina and Chile to fight during the war of independence. Chile, which also managed to win against Argentina, decided to determine the border between Argentina and the Andes Mountain. The result is as you can see above.
If we place Chile’s northernmost point in Ankara, it goes all the way to Tanzania, that’s as long:
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