50 Fun Facts About Patagonia

Patagonia is shared between which two countries?

Roughly 90 percent of the region lies in Argentina and about 10 percent in Chile.

Patagonia comes from 'patagón', Magellan's 1520 term for natives believed to be what?

The locals were simply taller than Europeans of the day; Pigafetta claimed they stood 9 to 12 feet.

Which indigenous people are now thought to be the 'Patagons' Magellan met?

They hunted game with bolas on the steppe; their numbers collapsed soon after European contact.

One theory traces the name to a monstrous character in which 1512 chivalric romance?

Bruce Chatwin preferred a Greek root meaning 'a roaring', since Pigafetta said the natives roared like bulls.

Which two rivers are usually taken as the northern limit of Argentine Patagonia?

South of them lie five Argentine provinces plus the southern tip of Buenos Aires Province.

Argentine Patagonia rises from the Atlantic in a series of how many abrupt terraces?

Each step is about 100 m, and the plateau is covered in shingle almost bare of vegetation.

Why is the eastern Patagonian steppe so dry compared with the Chilean side?

Islands near Torres del Paine get 4,000 to 7,000 mm of rain a year while the eastern plains get as little as 200 mm.

Which Patagonian city is described as among the windiest places on Earth, with gusts of 100 km/h?

Even Balmaceda, on the Chilean side of the same steppe, is known as the coldest place in Chile.

Which wild camelid, a close relative of the llama, is the signature mammal of the Patagonian plains?

The steppe is one of its last strongholds; indigenous hunters once pursued it on foot with bolas.

The Andean condor, seen over Patagonia, has a maximum wingspan of about how much?

It can weigh 15 kg, live more than 70 years and, unusually for a raptor, the female is smaller than the male.

The Magellanic penguin, named for the explorer who spotted it, can live up to how many years in the wild?

It breeds along the coasts of Argentina, Chile and the Falklands; a San Francisco Zoo bird named Captain Eo reached 40.

The Valdés Peninsula is the world's most important breeding ground for which marine mammal?

They gather in the sheltered Golfo Nuevo and Golfo San José near Puerto Madryn; elephant seals and orcas share the coast.

The Cueva de las Manos in Santa Cruz is famous for hundreds of stencilled images of what?

The paintings were sprayed through bone pipes in several waves from about 7300 BC; the site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

What did Magellan call the passage he found in 1520 before Charles V renamed it after him?

The 570-km channel is only 2 km wide at its narrowest and is far more sheltered than the Drake Passage.

Tierra del Fuego, 'Land of Fire', got its name from what?

Magellan feared the fire-builders were waiting in the forests to ambush his fleet.

Ushuaia claims to be the world's southernmost city. What does its Yaghan name mean?

It sits on the Beagle Channel about 1,100 km from the Antarctic Peninsula and is a gateway for Antarctic cruises.

Chile founded Punta Arenas in 1848 as what?

It later boomed on wool and gold and drew waves of Croatian and Russian immigrants.

Cape Horn was first rounded in 1616 and named after a city in which country?

Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire named it for Hoorn; it marks the northern edge of the Drake Passage.

Which naturalist rode with gauchos and boated 200 miles up the Santa Cruz River in the 1830s?

He was aboard HMS Beagle under Robert FitzRoy, who later gave his name to Patagonia's most photographed peak.

The Welsh colony in Patagonia began in July 1865 when 153 settlers landed from which ship?

Most came from the South Wales coalfield; the landing place grew into Puerto Madryn.

The Welsh-Argentine community, still famous for its tea rooms, is centred on the valley of which river?

Gaiman, Dolavon, Trelew and Trevelin are its main towns; the Welsh call the river Camwy.

The Patagonian town of Trelew is named after which pioneer of the Welsh colony?

'Tre' means town in Welsh; he had scouted the area with Captain Love Jones-Parry in 1862.

Which Argentine general led the 1870s Conquest of the Desert against Patagonia's indigenous peoples?

Troops killed more than 1,000 Mapuche and displaced 15,000; historians still argue whether it was civilising mission or genocide.

Which Romanian adventurer landed in southern Patagonia in 1885 and found gold in Tierra del Fuego?

The gold rush and sheep boom drove the settlement that displaced the Selk'nam and other native peoples.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are believed to have died in a 1908 shootout with which country's army?

With Etta Place they had fled the United States to Argentina first; the exact circumstances of their deaths remain unclear.

Which ice mass, the world's third-largest fresh water reserve, feeds the Perito Moreno Glacier?

The 30-km glacier is one of 48 fed by the field and its 5-km-wide terminus rises about 74 m above Lake Argentino.

The Perito Moreno Glacier is named after Francisco Moreno, who was what?

He also donated the land that became Nahuel Huapi, Argentina's oldest national park; 'perito' means expert.

The southern Andes' ice field is the world's second-largest contiguous ice field outside which areas?

It stretches about 350 km, with 14,200 sq km in Chile and 2,600 in Argentina, and feeds dozens of glaciers on both sides of the border.

Which Chilean glacier is the largest by area and longest in the Southern Hemisphere outside Antarctica?

At 1,265 sq km it dwarfs the more famous Perito Moreno, which covers about 258 sq km.

In Torres del Paine National Park, what does 'Paine' mean in the language of the Aonikenk people?

The Chilean park, created in 1959, draws about 252,000 visitors a year, more than half of them foreign.

Monte Fitz Roy's indigenous name, Chaltén, means what?

A cloud usually wreaths its summit; Francisco Moreno named it in 1877 for the Beagle's captain Robert FitzRoy.

Which two French alpinists made the first ascent of Fitz Roy in 1952?

A 1968 ascent by the 'Fun Hogs' included the future founder of the Patagonia clothing company, who put the peak's skyline on its logo.

Cesare Maestri's disputed 1959 claim to have climbed which Patagonian spire remains controversial?

His partner Toni Egger died on the descent with the camera; a confirmed 2005 route found no trace of the earlier climb.

What sits atop Patagonia's most notorious granite spire, making the true summit hard to reach?

It is formed by the constant strong winds; Maestri returned in 1970 with a gas-powered compressor drill to bolt a route.

The Argentine lake-district city of Bariloche is noted for what Alpine-style speciality?

It even has fondue restaurants; nearby Cerro Catedral is South America's largest ski resort.

Argentina's Ruta 40, which runs the length of Patagonia along the Andes, is roughly how long?

It runs from Cabo Vírgenes to La Quiaca on the Bolivian border and is South America's longest route.

Chile's Carretera Austral through Aysén was begun in 1976 under which ruler?

The 1,240-km road from Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins was built to link remote communities; he reportedly visited annually into the 1990s.

Which giant titanosaur was dug up in Patagonia after a farm labourer found a femur in 2010?

Named in 2017, it was first estimated at 37 m and 69 tonnes; its bones are held at the Egidio Feruglio museum in Trelew.

Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia was inspired by a piece of what animal's skin in his grandmother's cabinet?

The family called it 'brontosaurus'; it had been sent by a cousin, Charles Milward, and was later lost.

The outdoor clothing company Patagonia was founded in 1973 by which climber?

He had sold hand-forged pitons since 1957; in 2022 he transferred ownership to a trust and a climate non-profit.

Which North Face co-founder bought vast tracts of Chilean Patagonia and opposed the Carretera Austral's route?

Benetton, Turner and Lewis are among the other foreign landowners whose holdings have stirred local conflict.

What share of Argentina's 15 million sheep are raised in Patagonia?

Sheep farming arrived in the late 19th century, peaked in the First World War and revived after the 2002 peso devaluation.

Which Atlantic-coast oil city has grown on Patagonian petroleum, alongside Neuquén and Río Grande?

The Vaca Muerta shale formation in the Neuquén basin holds huge reserves reachable by fracking.

Which two heritage railways still run in Argentine Patagonia?

La Trochita, the 'Old Patagonian Express', is a narrow-gauge line made famous by Paul Theroux.

Which of these Patagonian glaciers, in Los Glaciares National Park, is larger than the Perito Moreno?

At 765 sq km it is almost three times the size of its famous neighbour, though Viedma is bigger still.

Which Italian clothing magnate is Patagonia's largest landowner?

Other foreign buyers have included Sylvester Stallone, Ted Turner and Christopher Lambert, often for prestige rather than farming.

Which Chilean city, the coldest place in Chile, was founded by Chilote workers expelled from Argentina?

Lacking grassland on the forested Chilean side, the settlers lit fires that could burn for more than two years.

Where did the 1994 arbitration tribunal sit that awarded Argentina Laguna del Desierto and Cerro Fitz Roy?

The 19th-century border had been fixed under British mediation, and the 1994 ruling also covered the Southern Patagonia Icefield.

Which geological feature is proposed as the northern limit of Chilean Patagonia?

Basement rock ages change abruptly across it, and it truncates structures such as the Pampean orogen.

Which Chilean site in Llanquihue Province shows human activity around 14,500 years ago?

Fishtail projectile points later spread across Patagonia and are found with remains of the ground sloth Mylodon and the horse Hippidion.