The Chiloé Archipelago is home to a wide variety of potatoes. After the Titicaca region of Peru and Bolivia, it is the geographical nucleus where the most different types of potatoes are found. Evidence ranging from historical records, local agriculturalists, and DNA analyses strongly supports the hypothesis that the most widely cultivated variety of potato worldwide, Solanum tuberosum tuberosum, is indigenous to the Chiloé Archipelago, and has been cultivated by the local indigenous people since before the Spanish conquest. Unlike potatoes from Peru and Bolivia, the potatoes of Chiloé are adapted to the long summer days of the higher latitude region of southern Chile. After the disastrous European Potato Failure in the 1840s, strains originating in the Chiloé Archipelago replaced earlier potatoes of Peruvian origin in Europe.

The Chiloé Archipelago is a group of islands lying off the coast of Chile, in the Los Lagos Region. It is separated from mainland Chile by the Chacao Channel in the north, the Sea of Chiloé in the east and the Gulf of Corcovado in the southeast. All islands except the Desertores Islands form Chiloé Province. The main island is Chiloé Island. Of roughly rectangular shape, the southwestern half of this island is a wilderness of contiguous forests, wetlands and, in some places, mountains. The landscape of the northeastern sectors of Chiloé Island and the islands to the east is dominated by rolling hills, with a mosaic of pastures, forests and cultivated fields.