Puerto Williams

The Yaghan, canoe people who hunted sea lions and gathered shellfish among the islands south of Tierra del Fuego, are believed to have lived in this area for more than 10,000 years, making them the world's southernmost Indigenous population. Europeans first encountered them in the 16th century, but outsiders took real interest only in the 19th, when whaling ships called and gold was found on the islands to the east: by 1890 about 300 miners were working Picton, Lennox and Nueva islands, and Puerto Toro was founded in 1892. Some islands were later turned over to sheep ranching.

Puerto Williams itself was founded in 1953 as a Chilean naval base, first under the name Puerto Luisa. It was later renamed after John Williams Wilson, the British-born founder of Fuerte Bulnes, the first settlement on the Strait of Magellan. The Navy built the first houses and offices — Naval House No. 1 of 1953 and the Beagle Naval District headquarters of 1954 are now listed as historic monuments — and opened a naval hospital in 1960. In 1961 the old Navy vessel Micalvi was anchored here. During the Beagle conflict with Argentina, trenches and defences were dug around the area, and under the 1984 Treaty of Peace and Friendship Puerto Williams became the starting point for ships of all nations travelling between the Strait of Magellan and the Argentine ports of the Beagle Channel.

Since the late 20th century the number of Navy personnel has fallen while the civilian population has grown. In 2005 the area became part of the UNESCO Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve, the Cape Horn Sub-Antarctic Center opened in 2022, a new multipurpose pier entered service in 2023 and a new airport passenger terminal was completed in 2024.

Puerto Williams claims the title of the world's southernmost city, and its tourism has grown around that idea. The claim is disputed: some point to the town's small size and favour Ushuaia or Punta Arenas instead. Since 2019, when Chile's statistics institute began counting every provincial capital as a city, it has officially been one in Chile.

Yaghan culture is central to the town's identity. Cristina Calderón, born on Navarino Island in 1928, was known as the last full-blooded Yaghan and one of the last native speakers of the Yaghan language; she lived at Villa Ukika and died in 2022, when the region declared three days of mourning, and the town's community hospital now bears her name. The Yagan Usi Territorial Museum tells the Yaghan story alongside that of missionaries and settlers, and the 19th-century Stirling House, a prefabricated Anglican dwelling moved here by way of the Falkland Islands, stands beside it. Remains of Yaghan camps and fish traps survive along the eastern shore.

Navy traditions shape the calendar. The Glorias Navales Regatta in late May belongs to the Navy's Month of the Sea, and July's Fiesta de la Nieve fills six days with snow games and rodeo — the town has its own rodeo arena. The yacht club on the Micalvi gathers sailors bound for Cape Horn and Antarctica.

The 2017 census counted about 1,900 people in Puerto Williams, the fourth-largest settlement in the region, and about 18 per cent of residents identified with an Indigenous people, mostly Mapuche and Yaghan. The largest age group is working-age adults — naval personnel, public officials and service workers — while many young people leave for higher education elsewhere.

The economy rests on four pillars: the Navy base, artisanal fishing for southern king crab, conservation-minded tourism, and public services, which employ more than a third of the workforce as the town administers the province and the communes of Cabo de Hornos and the Chilean Antarctic Territory. Thousands of hikers and cruise passengers arrive each year, and expedition cruises using the town as a gateway to Antarctica have increased since the 2024–25 season. The University of Magallanes has a centre here, and the town supplies the weather stations and lighthouses at Cape Horn and the Diego Ramírez Islands.

Life revolves around supply. Fresh produce depends on the ferry from Punta Arenas, goods cost more than elsewhere in Chile, and expectant mothers usually travel to Punta Arenas to give birth. The town has 5G internet over a submarine fibre-optic link. Beavers, introduced to Tierra del Fuego in the mid-20th century, have flooded and destroyed native beech forest on Navarino, and control and restoration programmes are part of local work.

The food of Puerto Williams starts with the sea. The artisanal fishery for centolla, southern king crab, begins each July and is an important source of household income and of exports from the region; the Navy's presence here is partly to protect fishing rights for the crab in the waters around southern Tierra del Fuego. Across Magallanes, the cold waters also supply centollón, a smaller crab, sea urchins, mussels and southern hake.

On land, the town shares the food of the wider region: cordero magallánico, lamb roasted for hours beside an open fire at gatherings, and calafate, the dark blue berry of a thorny Patagonian shrub, used in jams and ice cream — local legend says whoever eats it will return. Croatian and German settlers brought cakes and pastries to Magallanes, and the town has a pastry shop among its roughly twenty places to eat and drink.

Self-catering takes planning. The supermarkets' range of fruit and vegetables follows the arrival of the ferry, with canned goods and frozen meat filling the shelves in between, so trekkers usually bring supplies with them.