Desventuradas Islands in the context of Juan Fernández fur seal

Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, extending along a narrow strip of land between the Andes Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. According to the 2024 census, Chile had an enumerated population of 18.5 million. The country covers a territorial area of 756,102 square kilometers (291,933 sq mi), sharing borders with Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. It also administers several Pacific islands, including Juan Fernández, Isla Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas, and Easter Island, and claims about 1,250,000 square kilometers (480,000 sq mi) of Antarctica as the Chilean Antarctic Territory. The capital and largest city is Santiago, and the national language is Spanish.

Spain conquered and colonized the region in the mid-16th century, replacing Inca rule; however, they failed to conquer the autonomous tribal Mapuche people who inhabited what is now south-central Chile. Chile emerged as a relatively stable authoritarian republic in the 1830s after their 1818 declaration of independence from Spain. During the 19th century, Chile experienced significant economic and territorial growth, putting an end to Mapuche resistance in the 1880s and gaining its current northern territory in the War of the Pacific (1879–83) by defeating Peru and Bolivia.

Insular Chile, also called Las islas Esporádicas, or 'the Sporadic Islands', is a scattered group of oceanic islands of volcanic origin located in the South Pacific, and which are under the sovereignty of Chile. The islands lie on the Nazca Plate, separate from the South American continental plate.

Despite not being continental islands, the Juan Fernández Islands and the Desventuradas Islands are considered "Continental Insular Chile"; Salas y Gómez Island and Easter Island (both geographically situated in Polynesia) form the zone known as "Oceanic Insular Chile". All of insular Chile is administrated as part of the Valparaíso Region.

Continental Chile is the name given to the Chilean territory located on the continental shelf of South America. This term serves to distinguish the South American area from the insular territories, known as Insular Chile, as from the Chilean Antarctica (Chilean Antarctic Territory). The existence of this three areas of effective or claimed Chilean sovereignty is what supports the existing tricontinental principle in this country.

The term "Continental Chile Time" specifies the time zone of most of Continental Chile, Juan Fernández Islands and Desventuradas Islands, as UTC−4 in winter and UTC−3 in summer. However, the regions of Aysén and Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica use UTC−3 all year. Easter Island and Isla Salas y Gómez, both in Polynesia, use UTC−6 in winter and UTC−5 in summer.