Introduction

Chile is a 4.000 km long country, its border with Argentina follows the Andes mountain range.

There are 3 methods to find where you are :

-The road numbers. Road numbering in Chile is very logic, it makes it very easy to find any road if you know its number.

-Just like other countries, knowing regions and cities is important.

-Landscapes can give you a hint of your location. Northern Chile is a desert, the climate is dry in the center and humid in the south.

Regions

Chile has 16 regions, some of which share the same name with their capital city.

To learn them, there is this Seterra quiz.

Traps :

-O'Higgins was a hero of the independance. You may find his name anywhere in the coutry.There is a O'Higgins region in the center of the country, a O'Higgins city in the south, but there's no guarantee you are in either of those if you see O'Higgins written.

-Nubles region was created in 2017, so older streetview may mention Biobio region even though you're in Nubles.

Region numbers

Each region has a roman number associated to it. Those numbers appear on some road number signs, but since the road number is enough to find the road (except for the very long road 5), this information is rarely usefull.

If you still want to understand, here's the logic : the 13 historic regions are numbered I to XII from north to sud, with Santiago as XIII. The 3 new regions created in 2005 and 2017, Los Rios, Arica & Parinacota, and Nubles, are numbered XIV to XVI.

Main cities

Like for all other countries, there is the City quizz to learn them.

Road numbering

Both national and regional roads follow an easy pattern :

National roads

National roads are numbered 1 to 257 with the following pattern :

Single digit roads are north-south, those are the main roads of the country. There are only 4 of those : road 1 (north), road 5 (the main road), roads 7 and 9 (extreme south).

2-digit and 3-digit roads go from 11 at the peruvian border to 257 at the south end of the country.

Usually, even numbers are west of road 5, odd numbers are east of road 5.

Regional roads

They simply follow the alphabet, from A in the north to Y in the south.

Yellow ligns

Chili uses white paint on the roads, except where there might be a lot of snow. Meaning :

-high altitude, for example Banos Morales, near Santiago in the mountains.

-on road 9, which is the only alphat road at the extreme south that has streetview coverage.

Landscapes

landscapes are linked to the climate :

The more you go north, the dryer it gets, but it is doesnt mean it becomes warmer. For example you might find snowy mountains near roads 11,15,21 and 23 in the north.

In the north, the mountains (extremely dry) are close to the argentinian border, which is not necessarily the case in the south where there are mountains everywhere.

To train, i recommend you the Chile rural map no move.