Italian Chileans are Chilean-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Chile during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Chile. It is estimated that about 600,000 Chileans are of full or partial Italian ancestry, corresponding to about 3.5% of the total population, while Italians by birth in Chile are about 52,000. In Southern Chile, there were state-conducted Italian immigrant programs though they were not as massive as the German and Croatian immigrant programs. Families settled especially in Capitán Pastene, Angol, Lumaco, and Temuco but also in Valparaiso, Concepción, Chillán, Valdivia, and Osorno. One of the notable Italian influences in Chile is, for example, the sizable number of Italian surnames of a proportion of Chilean politicians, businessmen, and intellectuals, many of whom intermarried into the Castilian-Basque elites.
Family Alessandri, of Italian descent, in 1920, with two future presidents of Chile, Arturo Alessandri (1920–1925 and 1932–1938) and Jorge Alessandri (1958–1964)
La Plaza Baquedano of Santiago is commonly called "Plaza Italia."
Scuola Italiana Arturo Dell' Oro, Valparaíso campus
Family Castagna in 1910, who emigrated from Pavullo, Italy to Capitán Pastene.
Chileans are an ethnic group and nation native to the country of Chile and its neighboring insular territories. Most Chileans share a common culture, history, ancestry and language. The overwhelming majority of Chileans are the product of varying degrees of admixture between European ethnic groups with peoples indigenous to Chile's modern territory. Chile is a multilingual and multicultural society, but an overwhelming majority of Chileans have Spanish as their first language and either are Christians or have a Christian cultural background.
Chilean students in Santiago de Chile
Chileans carrying flags in the National Sanctuary of Maipú
Chileans in the metro in Santiago de Chile
Puerto Varas in southern Chile, shows German influence in its architecture.