Plaza de Armas

It is located among Monjitas, Puente, Estado and Merced Streets.

This is the main block of the city and it marks the central point of distances, social and religious events and the city hall building, the downtown area is designed from this square as a chess table, this kind of urban design was a common way to built cities in the Spanish colony period.

In 1541 Pedro de Valdivia asked this request to Pedro de Gamboa known as the “Alarife” that used a cord called “Vara” (each vara has 100 mts. aprox.), finally the original design counted with 18 blocks taken up by the men that joined Valdivia on the expedition.

Then this area was a flat land only with a central  fountain which was the city water supply the rest of the place was used to put the food market, also neighbors of Santiago used to celebrate events, welcoming gobernors, proclamations and religious ceremonies.

On its surrounding places Spanish put the main government buildings such as the Cabildo, the Royal Audience, and the house of the governor, also on the next corner they put the main altar that finally becomes into the cathedral.

This square has suffered four big Changes, in 1681 when the fountain got the water that comes from “Quebrada San Ramón”(Quebrada means something similar to cliffs, but with some water floods on it), in 1836 when the central fountain was changed by the new fountain known as “monument to America’s liberty”, the old fountain was put inside the current government palace “La Moneda”, this change was the first step of a restructuring work commanded by the minister Diego Portales and Intending José de Cavareda, then the square gets a new aspect with more facilities for recreation, trade and business, in 1896 a big central garden was added to the square and further some other little gardens appear containing exotic trees and flowers, also in this period the electric light was put in use giving a modern aspect to the area, in 1997 “METRO” the subway company put a new station underneath the main square, the works had a length of two years, giving the final and new aspect to the place, the project was asked to the architect Rodrigo Perez de Arce, anyway this final change keeps the monuments inside, such as the central fountain, the monument to Pedro de Valdivia, and the monument to indigenous population.