It covers an area of 4,600 sq km with a population of 490,000, of whom 480,000 are Catholic, distributed across 37 parishes served by 75 diocesan priests and 168 religious; it has a seminary, 37 male religious communities and 62 female ones (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 442). It is a suffragan of Santiago de Chile.
The diocese was erected by Pius XI with the apostolic constitution Apostolici muneris on 18 Oct. 1925. It comprises the civil provinces of Valparaíso and the Fernández Islands (Más a Tierra and Más a Fuera). The cathedral is the church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
BIBL.: AAS, 18 (1926), p. 202. Gastone Carrière