2
Modern Chile stretches along the western slopes of the Andes Mountains. It extends approximately 2,700 miles (4,300 km) from its border with Peru to the tip of the South American continent. The Andes, the longest mountain range on earth, shaped almost every aspect of life for the Incan people who have called this region home for thousands of years, drove the economy of Colonial Chile under Spanish rule and continues to shape the lives of the Chilean people and labor movement today.
Gold
Silver
Copper
The expansion of the Incan Empire was driven by the use and development of natural resources from the cultivation of corn, potatoes, and quinoa along the slopes of the mountain rage to the mining of granite stones gold, silver and other minerals that would be used by Incan architects and craftsmen to construct countless cultural artifacts, as well as the empire’s great cities, including Machu Picchu in modern Peru.
Machu Picchu, Peru
The Geology of Andes Mountain range has left massive mineral deposits in Chile, including deposits of gold, silver and copper. Today, Chile is the world’s largest producer of copper. Chilean mines produced 5.5 million tons of copper in 2010 and accounted for nearly two thirds of the country’s total exports and forty percent of Chile’s gross domestic product in 2011.
Resouces Naturales de Chile