Chile Population and Ethnic Groups Explained

GUIDES · CHILE

The Chile population is mid-sized by Latin American standards, about 20 million, but it is changing fast. Births have collapsed, the country is ageing, and immigration doubled the foreign-born share in seven years.

For a US reader, that matters in three ways. It shapes Chile’s labour market, drives President José Antonio Kast’s migration politics and explains a diaspora in the United States estimated at roughly 139,000 in 2018.

How Many People Live in Chile

Chile’s statistics office, the Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas (INE), ran its latest census from March to July 2024. It counted 18,480,432 people, 6.7 percent more than the 17,327,192 counted in 2017.

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Women make up 51.5 percent and men 48.5 percent.

The census is a head count of the people enumerators reached. INE’s official projections, published on 28 January 2026, are a modelled estimate instead.

They put the Chile population at 20,150,948 in mid-2026.

The World Bank series, which draws on UN Population Division estimates, gives 19.86 million for 2025. The three figures measure different things, so a gap of about 1.7 million between census and projection is not an error.

For a current total, INE’s projection is the official reference.

Growth is slowing to a stop. INE projects the population will peak at 20,643,490 in 2035 and then decline gradually, to 16,972,558 by 2070.

Deaths are projected to outnumber births from 2028.

An Ageing Country With Record-Low Births

Chile’s fertility rate fell to 0.99 children per woman in 2025, according to provisional INE figures released on 27 May 2026. It was the first reading below one in the country’s history.

Replacement level is about 2.1.

Births dropped to 146,446 in 2025, down 46.9 percent from 275,916 in 1993. Deaths reached 126,428, leaving natural growth of only 0.9 per thousand people.

In 45.1 percent of Chile’s municipalities, more people died than were born.

Mothers born abroad accounted for 19.7 percent of births in 2025. Immigration is therefore slowing the decline, though not reversing it.

The 2024 census shows the result. The average age reached 38.1, about ten years older than in 1992, when it was 28.8.

People aged 65 and over make up 14 percent, up from 6.5 percent in 1992.

There are now 79 people aged 65 or over for every 100 children aged 14 or under. In 1992 the figure was 22.2.

Some 766,000 households, 11.6 percent of the total, consist only of older people, and 454,764 of them are people living alone.

Where Chileans Live

Chile is long and thin, but its people are concentrated in the centre. The Santiago Metropolitan Region counted 7,400,741 residents in 2024, about 40 percent of the national total.

Four other regions passed one million: Valparaíso (10.3 percent), Biobío (8.7 percent), Maule (6.1 percent) and La Araucanía (5.5 percent). La Araucanía crossed the one-million mark for the first time.

The fastest-growing regions between 2017 and 2024 were Tarapacá in the far north, up 14.8 percent, and Coquimbo, up 11.2 percent. Aysén and Magallanes in Patagonia grew least, by 1.3 and 3.3 percent.

This is an overwhelmingly urban country, with an urban share of 89.2 percent in 2025, per the World Bank. Households are shrinking too.

The census counted 6,596,527 households averaging 2.8 people, and 21.8 percent are one person living alone.

Indigenous Peoples and Afro-Descendants

Chile’s census does not ask about race or skin colour. It asks whether people belong to, or consider themselves part of, an indigenous people, and separately whether they are Afro-descendant.

In 2024, 11.5 percent, or 2,105,863 people, said they belong to an indigenous people. That is slightly below the 12.8 percent recorded in 2017, according to INE.

The Mapuche, the people of the south-central valleys and the Araucanía region, are by far the largest group. They number 1,623,073, which is 77.2 percent of all indigenous people and 8.8 percent of everyone in Chile.

The Aymara of the northern highlands follow with 178,637 people, then the Diaguita of the north-central valleys with 153,231. Smaller peoples include the Quechua, the Atacameño or Lickanantay, the Colla and the Chango.

The Rapa Nui are the Polynesian people of Easter Island, in the Pacific. The Kawésqar, Selk’nam and Yagán are the peoples of the far southern channels, each about 0.01 percent of the population.

Indigenous identity is strongest in Arica y Parinacota (36.2 percent), La Araucanía (34.5 percent) and Aysén (29.2 percent). Afro-descendants number 174,190, or 0.9 percent, with the highest share in Arica y Parinacota in the far north, at 5.4 percent.

Thatched ruka houses, the traditional Mapuche dwelling. The Mapuche are Chile’s largest indigenous people. (Photo: order_242 from Chile, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

Languages and Religion

Spanish is the language of government, schools and daily life. The 2024 census found that 510,464 people aged five or older, 2.9 percent, speak or understand an indigenous language.

Of those, 74.8 percent, or 381,762 people, speak or understand Mapuzugun, the Mapuche language. Aymara follows with 60,605 speakers and Quechua with 39,430.

The Rapa Nui language counts 7,006.

Chile has become much more secular. Among people aged 15 and over, 74.2 percent reported a religion or creed in 2024.

Catholics made up 54 percent, down from 76.9 percent in 1992.

Evangelical and other Protestant believers rose to 16.3 percent, from 13.2 percent in 1992. People with no religion jumped to 25.8 percent, from 8.3 percent in 2002.

Believers are older on average: 46.7 years against 38.8 among the non-religious.

Immigration: From Neighbours to Venezuela

Chile has long had European minorities. A colonisation law of 18 November 1845 opened southern lands to foreign settlers.

The first German group reached Corral, near Valdivia, on 25 August 1846, according to Chile’s National Library.

More families followed to Valdivia, Osorno and Lake Llanquihue, recruited by the state’s colonisation agent Vicente Pérez Rosales. By 1856, 590 German families lived in Llanquihue.

Their Lutheran churches and timber houses still mark towns such as Frutillar.

The Lutheran church in Frutillar, on Lake Llanquihue, where German settlers arrived from the 1850s. (Photo: Carlos Figueroa Rojas, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

The modern wave is far larger. The 2024 census counted 1,608,650 people born abroad, 8.8 percent of residents.

In 2017 the figure was 746,465, or 4.4 percent, and in 1992 only 105,070.

Venezuela is now the main country of origin, with 41.7 percent of immigrants, or nearly 670,000 people. Peru follows with 14.5 percent and Colombia with 12.3 percent.

In 2017 Peru led, and in 1992 and 2002 Argentina did.

Most immigrants live in the Santiago region, where 964,835 were counted. But their share is highest in the mining north: 23.2 percent in Tarapacá and 19.7 percent in Antofagasta.

Immigrants are younger, with an average age of 33.5 against 38.5 for people born in Chile.

The National Migration Service, SERMIG, estimates a broader total of 1,918,583 foreign nationals in Chile at the end of 2023. That figure counts nationality rather than birthplace.

It also estimated that 336,984 of them lived in Chile in an irregular situation.

The Chilean Diaspora, Including in the United States

Chile also sends people abroad. The Second Register of Chileans Abroad, published by the foreign ministry and INE in January 2018, estimated 1,037,346 Chileans abroad.

Argentina hosted 42.4 percent of them. The United States came second with 13.4 percent, which equals roughly 139,000 people.

Spain (10.2 percent), Sweden (5.4 percent), Canada (4.1 percent) and Australia (3.6 percent) followed. The register predates the pandemic and the latest migration cycles, so the current spread abroad is not measured.

How Communities Live Together

Most Chileans, 88.5 percent in 2024, do not identify with any indigenous people, and Spanish is almost universal. Tensions run along two lines: indigenous rights in the south and immigration in the north.

On indigenous rights, the state indigenous development agency CONADI runs programmes such as indigenous language teaching in preschools. In a referendum on 4 September 2022, about 62 percent of voters rejected a draft constitution defining Chile as a plurinational state.

On migration, President José Antonio Kast campaigned on tighter borders. He is a conservative who founded the Republican Party and took office in March 2026.

His interior ministry reported 156 expulsions in his first month and a first expulsion flight carrying 40 people in April 2026.

In his annual address on 1 June 2026, Kast announced a “Plan Retorno” bill to encourage irregular migrants to leave voluntarily. He had earlier called a pledge to expel 300,000 migrants a metaphor, according to The Clinic, a Chilean outlet.

Immigrant families are also shaping births. Immigrant women aged 15 to 49 are more likely to have children than Chilean-born women, at 64.9 percent against 55.4 percent.

Migrants are also spreading out: the Santiago region’s share of them fell from 65 percent in 2017 to 60 percent in 2024.

The moai of Ahu Tongariki on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), home of Chile’s Polynesian Rapa Nui people. (Photo: Dennis Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons)

What It Means for US Readers

For investors, an ageing workforce and record-low births weigh on long-term growth, pension funds and housing demand. They also raise the value of immigrant labour in mining, construction and services.

Pensions and labour supply will stay central to Chilean economic debate.

For travellers and expats, Chile is a largely Spanish-speaking, urban and increasingly secular country. Northern cities such as Iquique and Antofagasta are far more diverse than the south.

In the Araucanía and on Rapa Nui, respect indigenous sites and community rules.

For anyone following US migration policy, Chile is a Venezuelan host country now tightening its own rules. Changes in Santiago can shift onward movement north towards the United States.

What Is Not Known

Nobody knows exactly how many people live in Chile at any moment. The 2024 census and INE’s projection differ by about 1.7 million, and INE’s projection is a model, not a count.

The number of irregular migrants is an estimate dated to the end of 2023, before the Kast government’s measures. How many people have since left, voluntarily or by expulsion, is not fully published.

The size and location of the Chilean diaspora rest on a register published in 2018. Whether the fertility rate has bottomed out, as INE’s projections assume after 2035, is also unknown.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the population of Chile?

The 2024 census counted 18,480,432 people. INE, the national statistics office, projects 20,150,948 for mid-2026 and expects the population to peak in 2035.

What is the largest ethnic group in Chile?

The census does not ask about race. Among indigenous peoples, the Mapuche are the largest group, with 1,623,073 people or 8.8 percent of the population in 2024.

What percentage of Chile is indigenous?

In the 2024 census, 11.5 percent of people, or 2,105,863, said they belong to an indigenous people, down from 12.8 percent in 2017.

How many immigrants live in Chile?

The 2024 census counted 1,608,650 people born abroad, 8.8 percent of residents. Venezuelans are the largest group at 41.7 percent, followed by Peruvians and Colombians.

Why is Chile’s birth rate so low?

Chile’s fertility rate fell to 0.99 children per woman in 2025, a record low. Births fell 46.9 percent between 1993 and 2025, and deaths are projected to exceed births from 2028.

How many Chileans live in the United States?

A 2018 register by the foreign ministry and INE estimated 1,037,346 Chileans abroad. The United States hosted 13.4 percent, roughly 139,000 people, second only to Argentina.

What religion are most Chileans?

Catholics made up 54 percent of people aged 15 and over in the 2024 census. Evangelicals and Protestants were 16.3 percent and people with no religion 25.8 percent.

Sources: Census, projections and vital statistics from Chile’s Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas; migration estimates from the Servicio Nacional de Migraciones; diaspora data from the foreign ministry and INE; history from the National Library; population and urban share from the World Bank. All accessed 12 October 2026.

INE Chile, Censo 2024 synthesis of results (rectified December 2025)
INE Chile, first 2024 census results, 28 March 2025
INE Chile, census results on indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and religion, 30 June 2025
INE Chile, population projections, 28 January 2026
INE Chile, provisional vital statistics 2025, 27 May 2026
Servicio Nacional de Migraciones, statistical report no. 4, July 2025
Government of Chile, Second Register of Chileans Abroad
Memoria Chilena (National Library), German colonisation in Valdivia, Osorno and Llanquihue
Ministry of the Interior, first expulsion flight, 16 April 2026
World Bank, population and urban share, Chile
Diario Financiero, 2022 constitutional referendum results
The Clinic, Plan Retorno, 1 June 2026