Why it looks like this

Pedro de Valdivia founded Santiago in 1541 between the Mapocho River and the rocky Santa Lucía hill, on the standard grid of the Laws of the Indies. That checkerboard is still the centre, with the 19th century's elegant avenues and parks — like the river-taming Parque Forestal — wrapped around it.

The Andes dominate everything: the wall of the cordillera, snow-capped for much of the year, closes the eastern horizon so completely that navigation is instinctive — the mountains are always east. The metropolis has climbed toward them anyway, its wealthiest districts rising up the piedmont.