The National Congress is the legislative branch

Legislature

A legislature is a kind of deliberative assembly with the power to pass, amend, and repeal laws. The law created by a legislature is called legislation or statutory law. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise or lower taxes and adopt the budget and...

 of the government of the Republic of Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

.

The National Congress of Chile was founded on July 4, 1811. It is a bicameral

Bicameralism

In the government, bicameralism is the practice of having two legislative or parliamentary chambers. Thus, a bicameral parliament or bicameral legislature is a legislature which consists of two chambers or houses....

 legislature comprised by the Chamber of Deputies

Chamber of Deputies of Chile

The Chamber of Deputies of the Republic of Chile is the lower house of Chile's bicameral Congress. Its organisation and its powers and duties are defined in articles 42 to 59 of Chile's current constitution....

 (lower house), of 120 members and by the Senate

Senate of Chile

The Senate of the Republic of Chile is the upper house of Chile's bicameral National Congress, as established in the current Constitution of Chile.-Composition:...

 (upper house), formed by 38 parliamentarians.

The organisation of Congress and its powers and duties are defined in articles 42 to 59 of the current constitution

Constitution of Chile

In its temporary dispositions, the document ordered the transition from the former military government, with Augusto Pinochet as President of the Republic, and the Legislative Power of the Military Junta , to a civil one, with a time frame of eight...

 and by the Constitutional Organic Law No. 18,918. Congress meets in the Chile Congress building, which was built during the last years of the Pinochet

Augusto Pinochet

Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...

 regime and stands in the port city of Valparaíso

Valparaíso

Valparaíso is a city and commune of Chile, center of its third largest conurbation and one of the country's most important seaports and an increasing cultural center in the Southwest Pacific hemisphere. The city is the capital of the Valparaíso Province and the Valparaíso Region...

, some 140 km west of the capital, Santiago. This new building replaced the old National Congress

Ex Congreso Nacional

The Former National Congress Building is the former home of the Chilean Congress. Congress met in this building in central Santiago until Salvador Allende's socialist government was overthrown by Augusto Pinochet's military coup d'état on September 11, 1973.During the Pinochet dictatorship,...

, located in downtown Santiago.

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