Its five campuses comprise more than 3.1 square kilometres (1.2 sq mi) of research buildings, health care centers, museums, theaters, observatories, and sports infrastructure.

In 1841 the minister of public education, Manuel Montt, conceived the idea of funding a corporation for the "advancement and development of sciences and humanities".

Andrés Bello a Venezuelan poet and humanist, formulated the project which with small modifications became a law on November 19, 1842, creating the Universidad de Chile.

During its first years the university gave considerable support to education, institutional organization (such as the "Civil Code", a model for America), the building of the road network to join the territory, and the energy and production infrastructure.

Most of the Chilean presidents have studied in its lecture halls, as well as people with prominent roles in politics, business and culture.

Some faculties, such as the one located in avenida Portugal and which now belongs to the Universidad Mayor, were privatized and sold at bargain prices to Pinochet cronies.

These changes were orchestrated by influential advisors to the dictatorship as a way to moderate the university's influence on the nation's politics, economics, public policies and intellectual movements, considered leftist by Augusto Pinochet and other right-wing government officials.

[citation needed] The university's community involves the collaboration of academics, students and staff, who perform the tasks that establish its mission and functions.

The University of Chile is organized into six vice presidencies (Vicerrectorías):[26] Currently there are 19 faculties and four interdisciplinary institutes which perform academic tasks undergraduate, graduate, research and extension.

In 1872 this emblematic building was opened, with neoclassical frontage that spans in the Alameda Bernardo O'Higgins in Santiago's downtown.

[35] The Digital Library[36] provides access to over 50,000,000 documents: books, theses, journals and articles, and digitized historical value as maps, manuscripts, sheet music, crafts, photographs, audio and movies objects The electronic publications of the University of Chile are freely accessible through the institutional repository,[37] academic journals[38] and e-book portal.

[40] The University of Chile is in charge of a variety of nationwide services and institutions, including: There are more than twenty other centres of national and international importance.