Cordillera Province, Chile

"Cordillera" is derived from Spanish and means a chain or system of parallel mountain ranges. It comes from the Old Spanish word "cordilla" meaning "little rope" or "string", which itself is derived from the Latin word "chorda".^[4]

Chile was re-organized into twelve regions excluding the Santiago Metropolitan Area by Law No. 575 enacted on 10 July 1974.^[5] The Santiago Metropolitan Region was officially created as per Law No.3260, enacted on 3 March 1980, and was made up of six provinces including Cordillera.^[6]

Cordillera Province is one of the six provinces of the Santiago Metropolitan Region in Chile.^[7][8][9] It covers an area of 5,528.3 km² (2,134.5 sq mi).^[1] Most of the land area of the province belongs to the Maipo River basin.^[10] Only about 16,000 ha (40,000 acres) of the province is covered by forests, which forms three percent of the total land area.^[11]

The region has a warm Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification: Csb), with the capital recording an average annual temperature of 16.24 °C (61.23 °F), and receiving approximately 3.3 cm (1.3 in) of rainfall annually.^[12] However, surface temperatures in the summer reach 35 °C (95 °F) in the province.^[13]

As a province, Cordillera is a second-level administrative division of Chile, governed by a provincial governor.^[8][14] It is further subdivided into three communes (comunas)–Pirque, Puente Alto and San José de Maipo.^[8][10] The city of Puente Alto serves as the capital of the province.^[15][16]

According to the 2024 Chilean census, the province had a population of 614,587 inhabitants. The population consisted of 317,586 females (51.7%) and 297,001 males (48.3%). About 18.3% of the population was below the age of 15 years, 69.7% belonged to the age group of 15–64 years, and 11.9% was aged 65 years or older. The province had an urban population of 592,218 inhabitants (96.4%) and a rural population of 22,369 inhabitants (3.6%). Most of the residents were born in Chile, accounting for 583,367 inhabitants (94.9%). Indigenous people formed 54,581 inhabitants (8.9%) of the population, while 559,949 inhabitants (91.1%) identified themselves as non-indigenous. Roman Catholics formed the largest religious group with 251,003 adherents (50.3%), followed by Evangelicals or Protestants with 70,001 adherents (14.0%), and 155,389 inhabitants (31.1%) indicating no religious affiliation.^[17][18]