| Vallenar | 5,052 | 5,199 |
| Coquimbo | 7,322 | 8,165 |
| Ovalle | 5,565 | 5,772 |
| Los Andes (Santa | | |
| Rosa) | 5,504 | 6,854 |
| Quillota | 9,621 | 9,876 |
| Vina del Mar | 10,651 | ... |
| Melipilla | 4,286 | 5,023 |
| Rengo | 6,463 | 7,232 |
| Vichuquen | 826 | 3,714 |
| Molina | 3,609 | 3,222 |
| Parral | 8,586 | 10,219 |
| Constitucion | 6,400 | 6,453 |
| San Carlos | 7,051 | 6,579 |
| Coronel | 4,575 | 5,959 |
| Lota | 9,797 | ... |
| Talcahuano | 10,431 | 13,499 |
| El Tome | 3,977 | 6,189 |
| Arauco | 3,008 | 3,334 |
| Canete | 2,000 | 2,552 |
| Mulchen | 4,268 | 4,332 |
| Traiguen | 5,732 | 7,099 |
| Victoria | 6,989 | 10,002 |
| La Union | 2,830 | 3,908 |
| Osorno | 4,667 | 5,888 |
| Castro (Chiloe) | 1,035 | 2,166 |
+------------------+----------+----------+

The population is not concentrated in large cities, but is well
distributed through the cultivated parts of the country. The large
number of small towns, important as ports, market towns, or
manufacturing centres, is a natural result. Many of the foregoing
towns are only villages in size, but their importance is not to be
measured in this way. Arica is one of the oldest ports on the coast,
and has long been a favoured port for Bolivian trade because the
passes through the Cordilleras at that point are not so difficult.
Moreover, the railway from Arica to La Paz will still further add to
its importance, though it may not greatly increase its population.
Another illustration is that of Vichuquen, province of Curico,
situated on a tide-water lake on the coast, which is the centre of a
large salt-making industry. Still another instance is that of Castro,
the oldest settlement and former capital of Chiloe, which after a
century of decay is increasing again through the efforts to develop
the industries of that island.

_Communications._--Railway construction in Chile dates from 1850, when
work was begun on a short line between Copiapo and the port of
Caldera, in the Atacama desert reg