On June 17th 2021, the upper house (Senate of Chile, Senado in Spanish) unanimously passed the law that establishes that, from 2022, the day of the winter solstice will be a holiday in Chile. Monday June 21st 2021 was also declared a holiday.
Several countries in the Americas honour their indigenous populations on the winter solstice
In the Southern Hemisphere, the longest night of the year takes place on June 21st, the winter solstice. Since ancient times, knowledge of the changing seasons was vital to farmers in the region. The winter solstice marked a welcome end to Winter and also the start of the new agricultural season.
The word Solstice comes from the Latin ‘solstitium’ meaning ‘Sun stands still’ because the movement of the Sun’s path north or south appears to stop before changing direction.
The Winter Solstice has been a public holiday in Bolivia since 2010.
Note that the holiday on October 12, which also celebrates indigenous peoples remains as a public holiday. That date is the historical date of the arrival of Europeans to the new world when Christoph Columbus landed in the Bahamas on October 12th 1492.