El Salvador is a mining town in the commune of Diego de Almagro, Chañaral Province, Atacama Region, Chile. Located at an elevation of more than 2,400 meters in the foothills of the Andes and in the middle of the Atacama Desert, it has a population of approximately 7,000 inhabitants. At its peak, El Salvador once had a population of 34,000 inhabitants.

The Atacama Region is one of Chile's 16 first order administrative divisions. It comprises three provinces: Chañaral, Copiapó and Huasco. It is bordered to the north by Antofagasta, to the south by Coquimbo, to the east by the provinces of Catamarca, La Rioja and San Juan of Argentina, and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. The regional capital Copiapó is located 806 km (501 mi) north of the country's capital of Santiago. The region occupies the southern portion of the Atacama Desert, the rest of the desert is mainly distributed among the other regions of Norte Grande.