Torres del Paine & Magallanes

Four peoples lived here before Europeans arrived: the Aónikenk, or Tehuelche, guanaco hunters of the steppe; the Selk'nam of Tierra del Fuego; and two canoe peoples, the Kawésqar of the western channels and the Yaghan around the Beagle Channel and Cape Horn. Ferdinand Magellan sailed through the strait that bears his name in 1520. Spain's attempt to settle it in 1584 ended in starvation at the site later called Port Famine, and for centuries the region was a place ships passed through.

Chile claimed the strait by founding Fuerte Bulnes in 1843, and Punta Arenas in 1848, first as a penal colony. From the 1870s sheep changed everything. Ranching companies and families such as the Menéndez and Braun built vast estancias across the steppe and Tierra del Fuego, Punta Arenas grew rich as a coaling and wool port, and immigrants arrived from Croatia, Britain, Spain and Chiloé. The same boom destroyed the Selk'nam, who were hunted, deported and killed by disease within a few decades, in what is known as the Selk'nam genocide.

The Panama Canal, opened in 1914, ended the strait's shipping boom. Oil was found on Tierra del Fuego in 1945. In 1978 Chile and Argentina came close to war over islands at the mouth of the Beagle Channel, a dispute settled by papal mediation and a treaty in 1984. Torres del Paine National Park was created in 1959 and made the region a major destination.

Magallánicos have a strong regional identity, shaped by distance from Santiago, the wind and the pioneer era. Croatian surnames, clubs and food are part of Punta Arenas life, alongside British and Chilote heritage, and many families trace their roots to estancia workers. Resentment of central government runs deep and surfaced in the 2011 protests over gas prices.

Estancia culture survives in sheep-shearing festivals, rodeos and the lamb roasts of rural fiestas, and mate is common. In Punta Arenas the main square, the Plaza Muñoz Gamero, is still lined by the neoclassical mansions of the pioneer families.

The indigenous peoples are remembered in museums, place names and a revival of Kawésqar and Yaghan identity. Cristina Calderón, one of the last native speakers of the Yaghan language, died in 2022.

About 165,000 people live in the region, most of them in Punta Arenas, a city of about 125,000 on the Strait of Magellan, with a free-trade zone, a university and an ageing core of wool-era mansions. Puerto Natales, of about 24,000, has grown fast on tourism; Porvenir and Puerto Williams are small towns.

The economy mixes sheep and cattle ranching, fishing and salmon farming, natural gas and methanol production, public administration, the navy and a large and growing tourism sector. Punta Arenas is also a logistics base for scientific and tourist voyages to Antarctica. The region administers the Chilean Antarctic Territory, a claim to part of the continent that, like all territorial claims there, is held in abeyance under the Antarctic Treaty.

Life adapts to extremes: summer days stretch past ten at night, winter days are short, heating is essential for most of the year, and residents often travel through Argentina to reach the rest of Chile by road.

Magallanes is known for cordero magallánico, lamb raised on the steppe and roasted for hours beside an open fire at estancias and family gatherings. The seas supply centolla, southern king crab, along with centollón, a smaller crab, sea urchins, mussels and southern hake.

Calafate, the dark blue berry of a thorny Patagonian shrub, flavours ice cream and jam; local legend says whoever eats it will return. Croatian and German settlers brought cakes and pastries, and tea with cakes is a Punta Arenas habit.

Beer has long been brewed in Punta Arenas, where local craft labels have joined the old brewery.

Torres del Paine National Park is the region's centrepiece: the granite towers, the Cuernos, the French Valley, Lake Pehoé, the Salto Grande waterfall and Grey Glacier, walked on the three- to five-day W trek or the longer O circuit, with guanacos on the open grassland. Puerto Natales, on the Última Esperanza sound, is the base, with the old Bories meat-packing plant on its shore and the Milodon Cave nearby. Boat trips from Natales reach the Balmaceda and Serrano glaciers in Bernardo O'Higgins National Park.

Punta Arenas has its main square with the Magellan monument, the Braun-Menéndez palace and regional museum, a cemetery of cypress avenues and pioneer mausoleums, and replicas of historic ships. Boats run to the penguin colony on Isla Magdalena, and to the south are Fuerte Bulnes and Port Famine.

Across the strait, the Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego has Porvenir, sheep estancias and a king penguin colony. Further south, the fjords and channels towards Cape Horn lead past the glaciers of the Cordillera Darwin to Navarino Island, where Puerto Williams is the base for the Dientes de Navarino trek, and to Cape Horn National Park, reached by expedition cruise.