Chile is also the only country of any size consisting of just a coast and no interior.
It is squeezed along the massive length of the Andes and the Pacific, with the majority of its population of 15 million crammed around Santiago, the capital. The top third is desert, the bottom third uninhabited fjords and glaciers unreachable except by boat, with only a scattered population along the Patagonian border with Argentina. Argentina on the other hand, is a vast expanse-an immense country, rich in every sense of the word, spread out on vast, rolling plains on the other side of the Andes. Its population is five times that of Chile. The province of Buenos Aires alone is enormous-as big as all of western Europe.