When Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia arrived in Chile in 1542 and founded Santiago, the country was formed by different peoples who had adapted their organisation and way of life to the climate and geography of their habitat. From north to south, they can be divided into the following groups:

• Aymaras: People living on the Andean plateau with an economy based on animal grazing and agriculture.
• Atacameños: One of the most developed peoples of northern Chile, along with the Diaguitas; they settled mostly in ravines in the Andes between Arica and San Pedro de Atacama.
• Changos: A nomadic fishing people who travelled the coast between Arica and Copiapó.
• Diaguitas: Known for their pottery, this people lived in valleys between Copiapó and Santiago.
• Incas: Although the Inca Empire tends to be associated almost exclusively with Peru, the Incas were important in Chile as from 1470 when they reached south of the Maule River, giving them significant influence in the development of the area’s indigenous peoples.
• Mapuches (or Araucanos): These great warriors were, certainly, the indigenous people that put up the American continent’s most tenacious resistance to the Spaniards. Basically an agricultural people, they lived mainly in the area between the Itata and Toltén Rivers and were divided into the Picunches, Mapuches and Huilliches.
• Canoe peoples: These nomad fishers and gatherers roamed the islands of the archipelago of western Patagonia and were divided into the three groups: the Chonos, the Kawéskar and the Yamanas.
• Patagonians: Nomad hunters and gatherers in the steppe pampa who were divided into the aonikenks and the selk’nams.
• Polynesians: The inhabitants of Easter Island.