Many Basques arrived in Chile in the 16th,17th,18th,19th and early 20th century from their homeland in northern Spain (see Basque Provinces) and parts of southwestern France, as conquistadors, soldiers, sailors, merchants, priests and labourers. Due to their traditional hard work and entrepreneurship, many of them rose to the top of the social scale and intermarried into the Chilean elites formed by Basques, giving birth to the new Basque-Chilean aristocracy in Chile. This union is the basis of the Chilean elite of today. But also, they immensely contributed to the ethnic make up of the bulk of the Chilean population.Many years after the first waves of settlers, thousands of Basque refugees fleeing Spanish Civil War in 1939 also settled and have many descendants in the country and have eve