Chile is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different races, ethnicity, and national backgrounds.

As per an estimate 52.7% of Chileans were white, 39.3% were mestizo, and 8% were Amerindian or Indigenous people.

Mestizos traditionally denotes Amerindian and European ancestry (mostly Spaniard ancestry). 

White people are mainly Spaniards, and there was never large-scale immigration from other European countries such as that to Argentina or Brazil. Most of the immigrants to Chile during the 19th and 20th centuries came from France, Great Britain, Germany, and Croatia, among others. 

It is estimated that about 5% of the population (800,000) is descendant of Asian immigrants, chiefly from the Middle East (i.e. Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese, see Arab Chileans). Most of these are Christians from the Levant,  of whom roughly 500,000 are Palestinian descendants, mostly Christians, are believed to reside in Chile. Additionally, about 18,000 – 25,000 Jews reside in Chile.

Also, roughly 500,000 of Chile’s population is of full or partial Palestinian origin, and 800,000 Arab descents. Chile currently has 1.5 million of Latin American immigrants, mainly from Venezuela, Peru, Haiti, Colombia, Bolivia and Argentina.

In recent years, Chile has had a growing East Asian population, mainly from China, but also from Japan and South Korea . The earliest wave of East Asian immigration took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, mainly Chinese and Japanese contract laborers.

The racial composition is as follows

Source: UNAM study