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Timber plantation expansion is a significant form of landscape change with reported negative environmental and social impacts. We analyze the proximate drivers of plantation expansion in southcentral Chile, one of the countries in South America with the highest rates of afforestation and reforestation in the last decades. Satellite images from 1975, 1990 and 2007 were used to estimate autologistic regressions for the periods 1975–1990 and 1990–2007. Timber plantations (mostly Pinus radiata) increased from 29,213 ha in 1975 (5.5% of the landscape) to 224,716 ha in 2007 (42.4% of the landscape). We found a clearer pattern of expansion between 1975 and 1990 as compared to 1990–2007, associated with soils of forest suitability, steep slopes, and proximity to main cities, corporate landholding, and large farms. Between 1990 and 2007 some of these drivers lost significance as plantations expanded in all …