Torres del Paine is a 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...

an commune located in the inland of Última Esperanza Province

Última Esperanza Province

Última Esperanza Province is one of four provinces in the southern Chilean region of Magallanes and Antártica Chilena . The capital is Puerto Natales...

 and Magallanes Region. The commune is administered by the municipality

Municipality

A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...

 in Cerro Castillo

Cerro Castillo, Chile

Cerro Castillo is a hamlet east of Torres del Paine National Park, and is the head of Torres del Paine commune, in Magallanes Region.The village is close to the Argentine border. The Chilean customs and immigration offices serving the border crossing are located in the village....

, the major settlement in the commune. Torres del Paine National Park

Torres del Paine National Park

Torres del Paine National Park is a national park encompassing mountains, a glacier, a lake, and river-rich areas in southern Chilean Patagonia. The Cordillera del Paine is the centerpiece of the park. It lies in a transition area between the Magellanic subpolar forests and the Patagonian Steppes...

 lies within the commune.

Demographics

According to the 2002 census

Census

A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

 of the National Statistics Institute

National Statistics Institute (Chile)

The National Statistics Institute of Chile is a state-run organization of the Government of Chile, created in the second half of the 19th century and tasked with performing a general census of population and housing, then collecting, producing and publishing official demographic statistics of...

, Torres del Paine spans an area of 6469.7 sqkm and has 739 inhabitants (543 men and 196 women), making the commune an entirely rural area. The population grew by 53.3% (257 persons) between the 1992 and 2002 censuses.

Administration

As a commune, Torres del Paine is a third-level administrative division of Chile administered by a municipal council

Municipal council

A municipal council is the local government of a municipality. Specifically the term can refer to the institutions of various countries that can be translated by this term...

, headed by an alcalde

Alcalde

Alcalde , or Alcalde ordinario, is the traditional Spanish municipal magistrate, who had both judicial and administrative functions. An alcalde was, in the absence of a corregidor, the presiding officer of the Castilian cabildo and judge of first instance of a town...

 who is directly elected every four years. The 2008-2012 alcalde is Anahi Cardenas Rodríguez (Ind.

Independent (politician)

In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...

).

Within the electoral divisions of Chile, Torres del Paine is represented in 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....

 by Carolina Goic (PDC

Christian Democratic Party

Christian democratic parties are those political parties that seek to apply Christian principles to public policy. The underlying Christian democracy movement emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social teaching, and it continues to be influential in Europe and...

) and Miodrag Marinovic (Ind.) as part of the 60th electoral district, which includes the entire Magallanes and Antartica Chilena Region. The commune is represented in 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:...

 by Carlos Bianchi Chelech (Ind.) and Pedro Muñoz Aburto (PS

Socialist Party of Chile

The Socialist Party of Chile is a political party, that is part of the center-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy coalition. Its historical leader was the late President of Chile Salvador Allende Gossens, who was deposed by General Pinochet in 1973...

) as part of the 19th senatorial constituency (Magallanes Region).