Valparaíso Overview

By Lauren Yero

Lovers of right angles beware: when you enter Valparaíso, you’re entering a labyrinth that defies all structural reason. Streets twist whimsically as though with a mind of their own, leading the willing traveler through a maze of candy-colored buildings and graffiti-covered walls. The best way to approach the city is to take a walk with no particular destination; your inner photographer will love you for it.

The city, with an urban population of about 265,000, consists of two distinct parts: the 45 hills or cerros, and the streets that run along the coastline. These two parts couldn’t be more different. Wandering through the cerros can feel as though you’re the only person in the city, with only stray dogs and intricate, vibrant graffiti to keep you company. Down by the waterfront, however, speeding micros and colectivos flood the streets, and locals with purpose to their stride fill the sidewalks. Down here, you’ll find all the city’s practicalities—grocery stores, pharmacies, banks, tourism offices—but you have to look hard for the same otherworldly charm you’ll find up in the hills.

The city’s architecture, which ranges from British colonial houses to impressive Yugoslavian palaces, is a testament to Valparaíso’s diverse sociological history. The region was originally inhabited by a tribe of native fisherman called the Changos, when in 1536 a ship of Spanish explorers arrived and renamed the bay and valley “Valparaíso,” becoming the first of a long line of Europeans to make their home in the bay.

The city’s beginnings were full of tragedy, devastated by earthquakes and pirates (the legendary Sir Francis Drake, for instance, sacked the city in 1577 on his hunt for Spanish gold). But by the 19th Century, Valparaíso had become one of the most important ports in the Pacific Ocean, known by many as “The Jewel of the Pacific.” With its economic prosperity came intellectual prosperity. Valparaíso became the first city in Chile to open a public library, a women’s secondary school, the first to have a telegraph and telephone service, and the first city in Latin America to establish a stock exchange and volunteer fire department. As the city’s accolades poured in, so did European immigrants—from Germany, England, Italy, and France.

This prosperity came to a halt, however, when a massive earthquake and subsequent fire in 1906 killed over 20,000 people in the city. This disaster, followed by the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, caused the city to fall into an economic despair from which it has yet to fully recover.

Recently, however, Valparaíso was rediscovered by a wave of young moneyed artists from Europe and Santiago, who literally gave the city a new face by covering walls and buildings with elaborate graffiti murals and reinvigorating the presence of the arts in Valparaíso . In 2003, UNESCO recognized the cultural significance of the city by naming its historic center a World Heritage site, placing it among the ranks with Prague, Venice and the Great Wall of China.