During the last 30 years, metropolitan areas of Chile in general, and of Valparaiso, in particular, have undergone significant transformations in their morphology and population. This article describes and analyses the latent footprint of these transformations in the differentiation of the residential space of the "Gran Valparaiso". The data source used was the Population and Housing Censuses of 1992, 2002, and 2017. The unit of spatial analysis is the census zone and the methodological protocol implemented involved the combined application of descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis techniques. The results prove an incremental process of socio-economic and demographic fragmentation of the residential area of Gran Valparaiso, evidenced both in the number and in the content of the components that emerge from a factor analysis.