The diocese covers a territory of 15,590 sq. miles and has a total population of 310,000 inhabitants, of whom 280,000 are Catholic; it has 209 churches, 44 parishes, 47 diocesan priests, 17 seminarians, and 48 religious priests.
The diocese of Santiago de Chile, erected by Pius IV in 1561 as a suffragan of Lima, was elevated to a metropolitan see by Gregory XVI in 1840. From this see, on 18 October 1925, Pius XI, with the apostolic constitution *Apostolici muneris*, having divided the two civil provinces of O'Higgins and Colchagua, created the diocese of Rancagua; the church of the Holy Cross in Rancagua was elevated to the status of a cathedral.
BIBL.: AAS, 18 (1926), p. 202; *Ann. Pont. 1952*, p. 334;