Atacama Desert Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert () is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1000-km (600-mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. The Atacama desert is one of the driest places in the world (the driest being the McMurdo Dry Valleys ) , as well as the only true desert to receive less precipitation than the polar deserts. According to estimates, the Atacama Desert occupies , or if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included. Most of the desert is composed of stony terrain, salt lakes ("salares"), sand, and felsic lava
Tourism in Chile were Europeans (34%). Of the total percentage of visitors, 5% were from Chile. In Chile from June to September it is possible to practice Winter Sports, especially skiing and snowboarding During the Andes, between the regions of Valparaíso and Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica, there are eighteen ski resorts of international quality, as Portillo, the oldest ski resort in South America and home to the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1966, and Valle Nevado, which has one of the largest ski areas in South America As part of the cultural heritage of Chile, there are buildings, objects and sites of archaeological,