What is out of reach
Every other figure in PuroChile says how much of something a place has. This one says who is beyond reach of it — measured from each of the 244.754 census blocks and rural entities where Chileans were counted, to the nearest facility that exists.
A commune's average is the average of its town. This is the figure that average hides: measured from the blocks, the people who live far from it do not disappear inside it.
The map of the gaps
MINSAL · Mineduc · INEThe communes furthest out
The population-weighted average distance of each commune's own people. A commune is not a point: the figure is the average over everyone counted in it, which is why a commune with a town and a hinterland lands between the two.
From an emergency room
| Commune | Average km | People |
|---|---|---|
| O'Higgins | 134.4 | 647 |
| Ollagüe | 120.2 | 256 |
| San Gregorio | 109.6 | 241 |
| Tortel | 95.9 | 505 |
| Primavera | 91.1 | 431 |
| Timaukel | 89.8 | 157 |
| Guaitecas | 87.9 | 1,598 |
| Laguna Blanca | 74.4 | 269 |
| Río Verde | 69.5 | 102 |
| Torres del Paine | 68.9 | 203 |
From a second- or third-level facility
| Commune | Average km | People |
|---|---|---|
| Isla de Pascua | 3,528.8 | 4,800 |
| Juan Fernández | 624.0 | 904 |
| O'Higgins | 223.4 | 647 |
| Tortel | 196.5 | 505 |
| Palena | 153.6 | 1,903 |
| Futaleufú | 140.8 | 3,062 |
| Lago Verde | 118.8 | 779 |
| Taltal | 117.2 | 12,097 |
| General Lagos | 115.5 | 508 |
| San Gregorio | 109.7 | 241 |
What this is not
Straight-line distance. Not road distance, not travel time, not whether there is a road. In a country of cordillera and fjords the gap between the two is not a correction factor — the 8 km across a channel in Aysén are not the 8 km across Ñuñoa. Every figure here is a floor, and the real distance is never smaller.
The registers say a facility is there and what kind it is. They do not say how many people work in it, when it opens, or whether it can take you. A rural post open on Thursdays counts the same as a regional hospital, which is why the figures are split by what the facility is and never added into one score of «access».
A single number combining distance, poverty and overcrowding would need weights, and a weight is an opinion: it says how many kilometres a percentage point of overcrowding is worth. The distances are published beside the other figures, and the weighing is left to the reader.
Population from the 2024 census, at the block level. Health facilities from MINSAL's register as it stood in September 2026; schools from Mineduc's 2025 directory, in operation and teaching upper secondary to children and young people by that ministry's own definitions. Every facility was checked against the comuna its own register declares. The checks are here.