This first chapter of the OECD Rural Policy Review of Chile provides a general diagnosis of Chilean rural regions. The chapter starts by recommending a revision to the current definition defining “rural” areas in Chile. It then follows with four main sections. The first section discusses the main framework conditions for rural development in Chile, covering macroeconomic aspects, the geographic characteristics of the country and high levels of concentration and inequality. The second section describes the main rural characteristics in Chile using the OECD taxonomy defining predominantly rural regions, the OECD functional urban area definition and the revised definition. The third section examines the performances of rural regions; however, for the case of Chile, given that GDP data are not available for TL3 regions; this section benchmarks the performance of the larger TL2 regions using population density and the degree of rurality as a proxy for capturing rural characteristics. The final section focuses on the social and environmental characteristics of rural areas in Chile.