Moving to Santiago

Today we look at moving to Santiago in Chile from Douala in Cameroon. We highlight cost of living and other major differences likely to be experienced in our series of short blogs on moving between different international locations.
In Douala people speak French, English, languages of the Bantu, Semi-Bantu and Sudanic groups. In Santiago people speak Spanish.

Douala is the largest city in Cameroon and the capital of Cameroon's Littoral Province. Santiago is the capital and largest city of Chile.
Douala is home to Cameroon's largest port and its major international airport, Douala Airport, it is the commercial capital of the country. Consequently, it handles most of the country's major exports, such as oil, cocoa and coffee, timber, metals and fruits.
Santiago is the industrial and financial centre of Chile, and generates almost half the country's GDP.

The overall cost of living rank in Douala is 79 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with high cost of living locations. An expatriate moving from Douala to Santiago which has an overall cost of living rank of 111, which equates it with middle cost of living locations, will experience a change in cost of living of -7.8%.
In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Santiago is ranked as a high degree of hardship location with a hardship index of 30% which is the same as Douala.

Source: http://www.xpatulator.com as at July 2011.