The total population of the Municipality is about 50,000 people with an annual growth of 1.10%.
The population is distributed between the urban sector (54.1%) and rural communities (45.9%).
The main centres of population are San Carlos (city) 25,000 people, Cachapoal 1,500 people, Buli 900 people and Ribera de Ņuble 800 people.
The economic activity is primarily agriculture, with the main crops being wheat, sugar beat and rice.
More recently also other traditional products such as strawberries, asparagus and Kiwi fruit have been developed. The Municipality does not have any significant large industries with only recent fruit processing, bricks and tiles factories being developed. In the case of the former these are characterised by employing temporary casual workers only during the harvest season.
The index of poverty in the Municipality is 54% including in this figure is also a 21.8% of the population being so poor that they lack the most basic necessities and are classified as indigent.
The official level of unemployment is 6%, this is referred to only those who have had a job in the previous year under contract or permanent employment and for different reasons they no longer have work but does not include those classified as unemployable or vagrant.
However, a report prepared by their own Municipality's Department of Community Services determined the actual unemployment of the labor force at 24.8%.
The index of illiteracy for the population over 15 years of age is around 15%. In this regard exists a low school continuity of students from the rural sector who in many cases they only attend until year 6 and then at the age of 12 or 13 leave school and move to help their fathers in rural activities.
In the urban areas about 95% of houses are provided with reticulated drinking water. In the rural areas, 34.27% of homes use water from wells, rivers and springs.
On the other hand,only 50.3% of households are connected to a sewer system, with those not having a sewer connection (49.7%) providing dug out wells for use of human refuse and 4.9% of rural households do not have any alternative for the elimination sewage. A total of 51 km of roads are provided in the urban area with 28.4% of this being paved, 7.8% are covered with cobble stone and 63.8% with gravel. With regard to footpaths 39.7% of the total are paved and 60.3% are provided with gravel or dirt surface and 41.9% do not have kerb and gutter.
A total of 4,644 homes in the urban area are provided with electric power, this represents 80.49% of the households. About 12% of houses in the Municipality do not provide the basic protection of healthy living and human habitation with no floor covering, no bathroom, no running water and have to use poor quality material for construction including some recyclable timber, adobe, tin and cardboard.
Although no Municipality can be said to be similar to the overall socioeconomic characteristic
of Chile, in general many of the patterns presented in the Municipality of San Carlos are also
representative of the country as a whole.
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