Chile, Haiti, Peru, Venezuela and Ecuador

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1. Chile

Example 1: Physical (excerpt)
Geography Chile
Location:
Southern South America, bordering the South Pacific Ocean, between Argentina and Peru
Geographic coordinates:
30 00 S, 71 00 W
Map references:
South America

Area:
Total: 756,950 sq km
land: 748,800 sq km
water: 8,150 sq km
note: includes Easter Island (Isla de Pascua) and Isla Sala y Gomez
Area - comparative:
Slightly smaller than twice the size of Montana
Land boundaries:
Total: 6,171 km
border countries: Argentina 5,150 km, Bolivia 861 km, Peru 160 km
Coastline:
6,435 km
Maritime claims:
Territorial sea: 12 nm
contiguous zone: 24 nm
exclusive economic zone: 200 nm
continental shelf: 200/350 nm
Climate:
Temperate; desert in north; Mediterranean in central region; cool and damp in south
Terrain:
Low coastal mountains; fertile central valley; rugged Andes in east
Elevation extremes:
Lowest point: Pacific Ocean 0 m
highest point: Nevado Ojos del Salado 6,880 m
Natural resources:
Copper, timber, iron ore, nitrates, precious metals, molybdenum, hydropower
Land use:
Arable land: 2.62%
permanent crops: 0.43%
other: 96.95% (2005)
Irrigated land:
18,000 sq km (1998 est.)
Natural hazards:
Severe earthquakes; active volcanism; tsunamis
Environment - current issues:
Widespread deforestation and mining threaten natural resources; air pollution from industrial and vehicle emissions; water pollution from raw sewage
Environment - international agreements:
Party to: Antarctic-Environmental Protocol, Antarctic-Marine Living Resources, Antarctic Seals, Antarctic Treaty, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Environmental Modification, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, Wetlands, Whaling
signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
Geography - note:
Strategic location relative to sea lanes between Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (Strait of Magellan, Beagle Channel, Drake Passage); Atacama Desert is one of world's driest regions
Source: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ci.html#Govt
Physical Geography 2 (Excerpt)
In a classic book on the natural setting and people of Chile, Benjamín Subercaseaux Zañartu, a Chilean writer, describes the country's geography as loca (crazy). The book's English translator renders this term as "extravagant." Whether crazy or extravagant, there is little question that Chile's territorial shape is certainly among the world's most unusual. From north to south, Chile extends 4,270 kilometers, and yet it only averages 177 kilometers east to west. On a map, Chile looks like a long ribbon reaching from the middle of South America's west coast straight down to the southern tip of the continent, where it curves slightly eastward. Cape Horn, the southernmost point in the Americas, where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans turbulently meet, is Chilean territory. Chile's northern neighbors are Peru and Bolivia, and its border with Argentina to the east, at 5,150 kilometers, is one of the world's longest. Chile's shape was determined by the fact that it began as a Spanish settlement on the western side of the mighty cordillera of the Andes, in the central part of the country. This range, which includes the two tallest peaks in the Americas--Aconcagua (6,959 meters) and Nevado Ojos del Salado (6,880 meters)--is a formidable barrier, whose passes to the Argentine side are covered by a heavy blanket of snow during the winter months. As a result, Chile could expand beyond its original colonial territory only to the south and north. The colony grew southward by occupying lands populated by indigenous groups, and it grew northward by occupying sections of both Peru and Bolivia that were eventually awarded to Chile in the aftermath of the War of the Pacific (1879-83).
The northern two-thirds of Chile lie on top of the telluric Nazca Plate, which, moving eastward about ten centimeters a year, is forcing its way under the continental plate of South America. This movement has resulted in the formation of the Peru-Chile Trench, which lies beyond a narrow band of coastal waters off the northern two-thirds of the country. The trench is about 150 kilometers wide and averages about 5,000 meters in depth. At its deepest point, just north of the port of Antofagasta, it plunges to 8,066 meters. Although the ocean's surface obscures this fact, most of Chile lies at the edge of a profound precipice. The same telluric displacements that created the Peru-Chile Trench make the country highly prone to earthquakes. During the twentieth century, Chile has been struck by twenty-eight major earthquakes, all with a force greater than 6.9 on the Richter scale. The strongest of these occurred in 1906 (registering an estimated 8.4 on the Richter scale) and in 1960 (reaching 8.75). This latter earthquake occurred on May 22, the day after another major quake measuring 7.25 on the Richter scale, and covered an extensive section of south-central Chile. It caused a tidal wave that decimated several fishing villages in the south and raised or lowered sections of the coast as much as two meters. The clash between the earth's surface plates has also generated the Andes, a geologically young mountain range that, in Chilean territory alone, includes about 620 volcanoes, many of them active. Almost sixty of these had erupted in the twentieth century by the early 1990s. More than half of Chile's land surface is volcanic in origin.
About 80 percent of the land in Chile is made up of mountains of some form or other. Most Chileans live near or on these mountains. The majestically snowcapped Andes and their precordillera elevations provide an ever-present backdrop to much of the scenery, but there are other, albeit less formidable, mountains as well. Although they seemingly can appear anywhere, the non-Andean mountains usually form part of transverse and coastal ranges. The former, located most characteristically in the near north and the far north natural regions, extend with various shapes from the Andes to the ocean, creating valleys with an east-west direction. The latter are evident mainly in the center of the country and create what is commonly called the Central Valley (Valle Central) between them and the Andes. In the far south, the Central Valley runs into the ocean's waters. At this location, the higher elevations of the coastal range facing the Andes become a multiplicity of islands, forming an intricate labyrinth of channels and fjords that have been an enduring challenge to maritime navigators. Much of Chile's coastline is rugged, with surf that seems to explode against the rocks lying at the feet of high bluffs. This collision of land and sea gives way every so often to lovely beaches of various lengths, some of them encased by the bluffs. The Humboldt current, which originates northwest of the Antarctic Peninsula (which just into the Bellingshausen Sea) and runs the full length of the Chilean coast, makes the water frigid. Swimming at Chile's popular beaches in the central part of the country, where the water gets no warmer than 15° C in the summer, requires more than a bit of fortitude.
Chilean territory extends as far west as Polynesia. The best known of Chile's Pacific Islands is Easter Island (Isla de Pascua, also known by its Polynesian name of Rapa Nui), with a population of 2,800 people. Located 3,600 kilometers west of Chile's mainland port of Caldera, just below the Tropic of Capricorn, Easter Island provides Chile a gateway to the Pacific. It is noted for its 867 monoliths (Moais), which are huge (up to twenty meters high) and mysterious, expressionless faces sculpted of volcanic stone. The Islas Juan Fernández, located 587 kilometers west of Valparaíso, are the locale of a small fishing settlement. They are famous for their lobster and the fact that one of the islands, Isla Robinson Crusoe, is where Alexander Selkirk, the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's novel, was marooned for about four years (excerpted from http://countrystudies.us/chile/36.htm).
Example 2: Culture (Chile) (excerpted)
Main article: Culture of Chile

Northern Chile was an important center of culture in the medieval and early modern Inca empire. Afterwards, their culture was dominated by the Spanish during the Colonial and early Republican period. Other European influences, primarily English and French, began in the 19th century and have continued until today, as in other Western societies. The national dance is the cueca. Another form of traditional Chilean song, though not a dance, is the tonada. Arising from music imported by the Spanish colonists, it is distinguished from the cueca by an intermediate melodic section and a more prominent melody. In the mid-1960s native musical forms were revitalized by the Parra family with the Nueva Canción Chilena, which was associated with political activists and reformers. Chileans call their country País de Poetas which means land of poets. Gabriela Mistral, was the first Chilean to win a Nobel Prize for literature. Chile's most famous poet, however, is Pablo Neruda, who also won the Nobel Prize and is world-renowned for his extensive library of works on romance, nature, and politics. His three highly individualistic homes, located in Isla Negra, Santiago and Valparaiso are popular tourist destinations.

People Chile
Population:
16,134,219 (July 2006 est.)
Age structure:
0-14 years: 24.7% (male 2,035,278/female 1,944,754)
15-64 years: 67.1% (male 5,403,525/female 5,420,497)
65 years and over: 8.2% (male 555,075/female 775,090) (2006 est.)
Median age:
Total: 30.4 years
male: 29.5 years
female: 31.4 years (2006 est.)
Population growth rate:
0.94% (2006 est.)
Birth rate:
15.23 births/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Death rate:
5.81 deaths/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Net migration rate:
0 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2006 est.)
Sex ratio:
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.72 male(s)/female
total population: 0.98 male(s)/female (2006 est.)
Infant mortality rate:
total: 8.58 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 9.32 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 7.8 deaths/1,000 live births (2006 est.)
Life expectancy at birth:
total ...