Continental Chile is the name given to the Chilean territory located on the continental shelf of South America. This term serves to distinguish the South American area from the insular territories, known as Insular Chile, as from the Chilean Antarctica (Chilean Antarctic Territory). The existence of this three areas of effective or claimed Chilean sovereignty is what supports the existing tricontinental principle in this country.
The term "Continental Chile Time" specifies the time zone of most of Continental Chile, Juan Fernández Islands and Desventuradas Islands, as UTCâÂÂ4 in winter and UTCâÂÂ3 in summer. However, the regions of Aysén and Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica use UTCâÂÂ3 all year. Easter Island and Isla Salas y Gómez, both in Polynesia, use UTCâÂÂ6 in winter and UTCâÂÂ5 in summer.
Continental Chile has a surface of 756,770 km<sup>2</sup>, representing 99.976% of the total surface of the country under effective administration. However, considering the claim in Antarctic, this percent fall down to only 37.71% of national's surface.
With regard to the population, according to the 2002 census, it had a total of 15,111,881 inhabitants, corresponding to 99.97% of the national population.