Tortel redirects here, for the village and harbour see Caleta Tortel

Caleta Tortel

Caleta Tortel is a coastal village in Chile. It is the administrave center of the commune of Tortel and is located between the mouth of the Baker River and a small embayment of the Baker Channel. The surrounding geography is rugged, formed by a number of islands, fjords, channels and estuaries...

Tortel is 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 at the outflow of Baker and Pascua River

Pascua River

The Pascua River is a river located in the Aisén Region of Chile. In spite of being a short river, its drainage basin is the seventh-largest in the country due to the great size of the O'Higgins/San Martín Lake, its source....

 to the Pacific Ocean between the Northern

Northern Patagonian Ice Field

The Northern Patagonian Ice Field, located in southern Chile, is the smaller of two remnant parts in which the Patagonian Ice Sheet in the Andes Mountains of lower South America can be divided. It is completely contained within the boundaries of Laguna San Rafael National Park...

 and Southern Patagonian Ice Field

Southern Patagonian Ice Field

The Southern Patagonian Ice Field , located at the Southern Patagonic Andes between Argentina and Chile, is the second largest contiguous extrapolar extent of ice in the world...

. The commune is administered by the municipality in Caleta Tortel

Caleta Tortel

Caleta Tortel is a coastal village in Chile. It is the administrave center of the commune of Tortel and is located between the mouth of the Baker River and a small embayment of the Baker Channel. The surrounding geography is rugged, formed by a number of islands, fjords, channels and estuaries...

, the principal settlement.

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...

, Tortel spans an area of 19930.6 sqkm and has 507 inhabitants (322 men and 185 women), making the commune an entirely rural area. The population grew by 13.2% (59 persons) between the 1992 and 2002 censuses.

Administration

As a commune, Tortel 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 Bernardo López Sierra (PPD

Party for Democracy

The Party for Democracy is a political party in Chile; it is social democratic in its political orientation. It was founded in December 1987 by Ricardo Lagos, who aimed at forming a legal social democratic party . The party continued to function after the defeat of Pinochet...

).

Within the electoral divisions of Chile, Tortel 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 René Alinco (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 David Sandoval (UDI) as part of the 59th electoral district, which includes the entire Aisén 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 Antonio Horvath Kiss (RN

National Renewal (Chile)

National Renewal , is a liberal conservative political party belonging to the Chilean right-wing political coalition Coalition for Change in conjunction with the Independent Democratic Union and the Chile First movement...

) and Patricio Walker Prieto (PDC) as part of the 18th senatorial constituency (Aisén Region).

External links

Municipality of Tortel