Museum of National History of Chile — Attraction in Santiago

This is a rather miniature museum. For a national level museum, it has only about a dozen small rooms. The museum is located next to Plaza de Armas, its brown-yellow construction doesn't resemble the local style but rather that of the distant Iberian Peninsula.

Admission is free, much like many museums in Santiago, which reminded me of the UK. The tour guide at the entrance was very enthusiastic, but there were no English introductions within the entire venue, everything was in Spanish. Thankfully, I had Google's photo translation tool.

The history of Chile is indeed not long. Compared to the European countries I've visited, as well as China, my homeland with an ancient civilization, most of the exhibits start from the 16th century. The most comprehensive exhibits probably pertain to the 19th and 20th centuries. The main focus of the 19th century was independence, influenced by many European ideologies, such as the French Revolution and the American Independence Movement. The history of this period was largely marked by the use of firearms.

After the political situation stabilised somewhat in the 20th century, a significant amount of money was made from selling hydrochloric acid. The country thus stepped into the high-income bracket. The industrial port cities along the coast attracted many British businesspeople. Their homes were in Victorian style, while German immigrants headed south to farm and expand territories. Of course, the southward expansion of Chile inevitably led to many wars against local indigenous people.

Modern Chile, as an outstanding performer in Latin American economies, still experiences significant wealth disparity. But this seems to be a problem of the entire century. China also faces the same issue. Although the economy has taken off and the purchasing power of the wealthy has astounded the developed world, almost 30% of the Chinese population still resides in rural areas. Close to half of Chinese people earn less than 1000...

There is an elevator to get to the 2nd floor for wheelchairs and baby carriages. For some reason they closed most of the doors on the 2nd level making it difficult for wheelchairs and baby carriages to navigate when they ready the end near the tower. Most people can just climb the stairs toward the end where there is a tower but wheelchairs and baby carriages need to be pushed back through all the exhibits to get back to the elevator. The exhibits themselves are very nice with a variety of historic paintings, furniture, and items. The entrance is free. There is a way to get WiFi for free but I couldn't figure out how to connect. The bathrooms were very clean with toilet paper and soap and there is a place to...

Super cool museum containing a lot of artifacts explaining the culture and history of Chile. Not a large museum but there are quite a lot of large artifacts which I did enjoy such as the historical artillery used and even a full size carriage. There's also a cool VR spot to travel through time but I didn't get a chance to use it as the hours are slightly limited compared to the general museum. This museum does have FREE admission which is fantastic but I really wished they would have added even machine generated english translations to better serve...