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
History of the Jews in Chile History of the Jews in Chile Jewish presence in Chile is as old as the history of that country. Over time, Chile has received several contingents of Jewish immigrants. Currently, the Jewish community in Chile comes mainly from the migrations occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries, mostly of Ashkenazi background. Chile is home to the third-largest Jewish community in South America. Chileans today have a positive view of the country's estimated 32,000 Jews or less than 1% of the population. The first Jews arrived in Chile with the Spanish "conquistadors". These were Jewish converts to Catholicism because, at the