page_title: Santiago Province, Chile
section_title: Climate and natural features
hierarchical_section_title: Santiago Province, Chile / Climate and natural features
caption_attribution_description: Paisaje rural de la Region Metropolitana, Chile. Foto tomada por es:Usuario:Der schöne Tod
context_page_description: Santiago Province is one of the six provinces of the Santiago Metropolitan Region of central Chile. It encompasses the majority of the population of that region, including 31 of the 36 communities of Greater Santiago. The province spans 2,030.30 km.
context_section_description: The climate of the Santiago Province, and generally of the Metropolitan Region is temperate Mediterranean cold, of the kind called continental. Precipitation is concentrated in the winter months, generally as snow over 1000 m above sea level and, in colder years, over the city of Santiago. Winter tends to be cold with frequent frosts during which temperature drops below 0 °C. The summer months are usually dry and hot. The Cordillera de la Costa acts as a climate screen and reduces marine influence, which makes the climate more continental. This situation becomes apparent when comparing precipitation from a coastal location such as Valparaíso (460 mm) with that of Santiago de Chile (360 mm).
  The annual median precipitation reaches 367 mm on average. The annual median temperature comes out to 13.5 °C, with a median high of 21 °C and a median low of 6 °C.
  Most of the province is made up of an extremely fertile, level prairie that the locals call la Depresión intermedia (Intermediate Depression). The terrain is known for its low elevation in relation to sea level and for being surrounded by hills, as well as emergent so-called island hills, such as Santa Lucía (an ancient extinct volcano), Blanco, and Renca, present today in the city of Santiago.
  There is some occurrence of the endangered Chilean Wine Palm, Jubaea chilensis within the Santiago Province; this iconic tree of central Chile had a much larger range prehistorically, before the decimation of much of its habitat by the expanding human population.
caption: Forest surroundings of the Province
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