The island of wooden churches and stilted fishermens houses — 16 UNESCO Jesuit churches, palafito houses above the water, and the richest seafood in Patagonia
Chiloe (Isla Grande de Chiloe) is the largest island in the Chilean Lake District — 180km long, 50km wide, separated from the mainland by the Chacao Channel (30 minutes by ferry from Pargua), covered in temperate rainforest, peat bog, and the potato heartland of the Americas. The indigenous Mapuche-Huilliche people of Chiloe developed over 200 varieties of native potato (the centro-sur of Chile and the adjacent Andes are the place of origin of all cultivated potato varieties; Chiloe's potatoes include colours, shapes, and textures unavailable elsewhere in the world). The island's wooden Jesui…
Chiloe was the last Spanish colonial territory in South America to be ceded — the island remained royalist through the Chilean independence war (1810-1818) and was only transferred to Chile in 1826, a decade after mainland Chilean independence, because the Spanish could supply the island by sea and it served as a refugee for royalist soldiers. This extended Spanish isolation gave Chiloe a distinct identity from mainland Chile: the island's legal system, the Jesuit religious mission structure, and the communal economic traditions (the minga cooperative labour system) developed autonomously ove…