Concepción is Chile's second-largest city and the capital of the Biobío Region. It sits at the mouth of the Biobío River, where it meets the Pacific Ocean, and has a character quite different from Santiago — more industrial, more rain, more university town. The Universidad de Concepción, founded in 1919, gives the city energy and keeps it culturally lively.
The city has been rebuilt many times after earthquakes — it sits on one of the most seismically active zones in the world — so its architecture is mostly modern. What the city lacks in colonial buildings it makes up for in murals: the campus of the Universidad de Concepción has some of the finest public murals in South America, including Jorge González Camarena's epic "Presencia de América Latina" inside the Casa del Arte.
Nearby, the seaside resort town of Tomé and the beach at Dichato offer Pacific coast scenery. To the south, the Biobío River was historically the frontier between the Spanish colony and the unconquered Mapuche territory — Fort Chepe on the city's western edge guarded that line for two centuries.