Chile has an area of 756,096 square kilometers (291,930 sq mi) and a population of 17.5 million as of 2017. The country has 16 regions, 56 provinces and 348 communes. About 85% of the country's population lives in urban areas, with 40% living in Greater Santiago. The largest agglomerations are Greater Santiago, Greater Concepción and Greater Valparaíso.

In 2021, The Government of Chile, through the Roads and Urban Transport Programme (SECTRA) of the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications, launched its National Strategy for Sustainable Mobility (ENMS), a public policy document that includes the vision, objectives and measures to articulate the different actors involved in this area. This through a roadmap that will allow addressing the main gaps and challenges in moving towards sustainable mobility in Chile. The Strategy sets the technical and political guidelines for the local implementation of sustainable mobility measures through the definition of key concepts, the identification of the main challenges at country level in the field, the generation of a long-term vision, the introduction of the necessary change approach, the specific objectives of the Strategy, and finally, the selection and description of measures as well as their possible implementation mechanisms. It is a guiding document for the design of the investment programme, which will act as a tool for the implementation of the Strategy.

This strategy is the first step towards sustainable mobility in Chile and it opens a space for multi-sectoral collaboration in which coordination at horizontal and vertical levels will be necessary, an opportunity that is favoured in the process of strengthening decentralisation in the country. There are diverse challenges, but this Strategy establishes a look from the sector and with it a request to start the transition.