Which country is more climatically diverse: Chile or Russia?

[Mhc1985]

How do you people quantify the difference?

By the way, Easter Island, Calama, Islotes Evangelistas and the summit of Mt. Tupungato make up better extremes for Chile.

[Anhityk]

Originally Posted by Mhc1985

This is an interesting topic, as we compare two countries with very different size. In terms of climate, Chile is probably the most diverse country of its size, whereas Russia is dramatically homogeneous considering it's huge. I say Chile is the most diverse out of these two, and maybe by a good margin.

The bulk of Russia is some variations of a rather unique type: continental. Milder in the west, extreme in Siberia, with seasonalized precipitation in the far east. Then we have the polar (both tundra and ice cap) climates of the Arctic, that by the way enter throughout soft transitions from the contiguous continental domains. It makes up around 16 millions sq km of surprinsingly little variety.

Finally, it is the subcontinental enclave of Kaliningrad, and the most varied part of the country, which is the Caucasus and nearby areas, where Mediterranean, highland Mediterranean, semi-arid steppes and high altitude polar climates come up. That's all.

Chile has an impressive latitudinal develop and a wide range of altitudes throughout its territory, which gives it the edge. The north is invariably arid, but you have contrasting climates in Arica (coastal) and Calama (high altitude).

It repeats going to the south: semi-arid coastal + inland + high altitude. Oceanic temperate, Mediterranean, high altitude Mediterranean. Finally subpolar oceanic (eg Islotes Evangelistas) vs cool semi-arid (eg Punta Arenas), quite different from dry areas of the north. Finally we have polar climates throughout all the country with contrasting precipitation patterns and Chile's Kaliningrad, Easter Island, which gives further diversity compared with its Russian counterpart, as it has a climate type completely different from any other Chilean part.

Yes, I think in terms of different Koeppen climate zones Chile indeed seems to have a bigger variety of them. Taking into account Chile´s size (if we could "wrap it up", it would be something like France+Great Britain together- not really that big) it is almoust criminally diverse and Russia, no matter being bigger than a planet Pluto is in turn pretty uniform. However, I believe Russia has bigger variety of temperature extremums, from +45.4c to -71.2c.

[Mr.Sir]

Chile, it has a wide variety of climates. Russia is too, but too much of it is similar (cold, fairly wet) for it to be considered as diverse as Chile

[Tall Traveler]

Chile has the driest desert in the world, wet lush cold in the south, oceanic, dry interior, super high altitude...CHILE is more diverse.