The colo­nial city of Valpara&iacute,so presents an excel­lent exam­ple of late 19th-cen­­tu­ry urban and archi­tec­tur­al devel­op­ment in Latin Amer­i­ca. In its nat­ur­al amphithe­a­tre-like set­ting, the city is char­ac­ter­ized by a ver­nac­u­lar urban fab­ric adapt­ed to the hill­sides that are dot­ted with a great vari­ety of church spires. It con­trasts with the geo­met­ri­cal lay­out uti­lized in the plain. The city has well pre­served its inter­est­ing ear­ly indus­tri­al infra­struc­tures, such as the numer­ous &lsquoelevators&rsquo on the steep hill­sides.