Punta Arenas
Punta Arenas is the capital city of Chile's southernmost region, Magallanes and Antarctica Chilena. Although the city officially was renamed Magallanes in 1927, its name was changed back to Punta Arenas in 1938. The city is the largest south of the 46th parallel south and the most populous southernmost city in Chile and the Americas. Due to its location, it is also the coldest coastal city with more than 100,000 inhabitants in Latin America. Punta Arenas is one of the world's most southerly ports and serves as an Antarctic gateway city. Punta Arenas is the world's southernmost city with more than 100,000 inhabitants and claims the title of southernmost city in the world, although that title is also claimed by Ushuaia in Argentina, which lies farther south but is slightly smaller than Punta Arenas.
Since 1977, Punta Arenas has been one of only two free ports in Chile, the other being Iquique in the country's far north. Located on the Brunswick Peninsula north of the Strait of Magellan, Punta Arenas was originally established by the Chilean government in 1848 as a small penal colony to assert sovereignty over the Strait. During the remainder of the 19th century, Punta Arenas grew in size and importance due to increasing maritime traffic to the west coasts of South and North America. The city's growth was also due to waves of European immigrants, mainly from Croatia and Russia, attracted by a gold rush, and sheep farming boom in the 1880s and early 20th century. The largest sheep company, which controlled 10,000 square kilometres in Chile and Argentina, was based in Punta Arenas, and its owners lived there.
Since its founding, Chile has used Punta Arenas as a base to defend its sovereignty claims in the southernmost part of South America. That led to the Strait of Magellan being recognized as Chilean territory in the Boundary Treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina. Punta Arenas' geopolitical importance has remained high in the 20th and 21st centuries due to its logistic significance in accessing the Antarctic Peninsula.
Since 2017, the city and its region have been on their own time zone, using summer time throughout the year. The city is supplied with water from the San Juan River.
Etymology
The name Punta Arenas whose literal translation would be "Point Sands", is actually derived from the Spanish term Punta Arenosa, a literal translation of the English name "Sandy Point".The name Sandy Point derives from the voyage of John Narborough in 1669-1671. He wrote in his account:
The English 18th-century explorer John Byron is sometimes erroneously credited with naming the area.
The city has also been known as Magallanes. Today that term is normally used to describe the administrative region which includes the city.
Punta Arenas has been nicknamed "the city of the red roofs" for the red-painted metal roofs that characterized the city for many years. Since about 1970, the availability of other colours in protective finishes has resulted in greater variety in the characteristic metal roofs.
Geography
Located on the Brunswick Peninsula, Punta Arenas is among the largest cities in Patagonia. In 2012, it had a population of 127,454. It is roughly from the coast of Antarctica and from Ushuaia, the capital of the Argentine province of Tierra Del Fuego.The Magallanes region is considered part of Chilean Patagonia. Magallanes is Spanish for Magellan, and was named after Ferdinand Magellan, the Portuguese explorer sailing for Spain. While circumnavigating the Earth for Spain, he passed close to the present site of Punta Arenas in 1520. Early English navigational documents referred to this site as "Sandy Point."
The city proper is located on the north-eastern shore of Brunswick Peninsula. Except for the eastern shore, containing the settlements of Guairabo, Rio Amarillo and Punta San Juan, the peninsula is largely uninhabited. The municipality of Punta Arenas includes all of Brunswick Peninsula, as well as all islands west of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego and north of Cockburn and Magdalena channels.
The largest of those are:
- Santa Inés Island
- Desolación Island
- Dawson Island
- Aracena Island
- Clarence Island
- Carlos Island
- Wickham Island
Climate
Due to its far southern latitude, Punta Arenas has a subpolar oceanic climate. The seasonal temperature in Punta Arenas is greatly moderated by its proximity to the ocean, with average lows in July near and highs in January of.It is known for stable constant temperatures, which vary only slightly with the seasons. Rainfall is highest in April and May, and the snowy season runs throughout the Chilean winter. As in most of Patagonia, average annual precipitation is quite low, only, because of a rain shadow created by the Andes. The average temperature does not go below. The city is also known for its high winds, which are strongest during the summer. City officials have put up ropes between buildings in the downtown area to assist pedestrians with managing the strong downdrafts.
After 1986, Punta Arenas became the first significantly populated city in the world to be affected directly by the thinning ozone layer. Its residents are considered to be exposed to potentially damaging levels of ultraviolet radiation.
History
Two early Spanish settlements were attempted along this coast. The first was founded in 1584 and was called Nombre de Jesús. It failed due to the harsh weather and difficulty in the settlers' obtaining food and water, and the enormous distances from other Spanish ports. A second colony, Ciudad del Rey don Felipe, was attempted about 80 kilometres south of Punta Arenas. This became known later as Puerto del Hambre, which translates to Port Famine. Spain had established these settlements in an attempt to protect its shipping and prevent piracy by English pirates, by controlling the Straits of Magellan. An English privateer, Thomas Cavendish, during his circumnavigation, rescued the last surviving member of Puerto del Hambre in 1587.Penal colony
In 1843 the Chilean government sent an expedition to build a fort and establish a permanent settlement on the shores of the Strait of Magellan. It built and commissioned a schooner called Goleta Ancud which, under the command of John Williams Wilson of the Chilean Navy, transported a crew of 21 people, plus cargo, to accomplish the mandate. The founding act of the settlement took place on 21 September 1843.The fort was well-positioned on a small rocky peninsula, but the location could not support a proper civilian settlement. With that in mind, in 1848, the military governor, José de los Santos Mardones, decided to move the settlement to its current location, along the Las Minas river, and renamed it Punta Arenas.
In the mid-19th century, Chile used Punta Arenas as a penal colony and a disciplinary posting for military personnel with "problematic" behaviour. It also settled immigrants there. In December 1851, a prisoners' mutiny led by Lieutenant Cambiaso, resulted in the murder of Governor Muñoz Gamero and the resident priest, and the destruction of the church and the hospital. The mutiny was put down by Commander Stewart of assisted by two Chilean ships: Indefatigable and Meteoro.
In 1867, President José Joaquín Pérez issued a decree offering land grants in an effort to get Chileans or foreigners to settle around Punta Arenas. The first British immigrants arrived in 1867, and their number increased as sheep farming grew in the Chilean Magallanes. The greatest immigration continued to be by the British until 1906, when Croatians surpassed them in numbers.
An 1877 mutiny, known as El motín de los artilleros, led to the destruction of a large part of the town and the murder of many civilians not directly associated with the prison. In time the city was restored. The growth of the sheep farming industry and the discovery of gold, as well as increasing trade via sailing ships, attracted many new settlers, and the town began to prosper.
Economic boom
Between about 1890 and 1940, the Magallanes region became an important sheep-raising region, with one company controlling over. In 1910, Sociedad Explotadora merged with Sociedad Ganadera, resulting in a company possessing 3 million hectares in southern Chile and Argentina, with over two million head of sheep. The headquarters of this company and the residences of the owners were in Punta Arenas. The Sarah Braun Museum is now established at the former Braun-Menéndez mansion, in the centre of Punta Arenas.The Punta Arenas harbour, although exposed to storms, was considered one of the most important in Chile before the construction of the Panama Canal. It was used as a coaling station by the steamships transiting between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Today it is mostly used by tourism cruises and scientific expeditions.
Modern city
The city is often a base for Antarctic expeditions, along with Ushuaia and Christchurch.File:PilotoPardo.jpg|thumb|Monument to Piloto Luis Pardo, a Chilean Naval Officer who led the 1916 expedition to save Sir Ernest Shackleton's crew members, stranded on Elephant Island, 2023
Demography
In 2012 Punta Arenas recorded a population of over 127,000 inhabitants for the by the National Statistics Institute. The population grew by 5.1% between the 1992 and 2002 censuses and further rose to 127,454 at the 2012 Census.The city was populated by many colonists from Spain and Croatia in the mid-nineteenth century, and many of their descendants remain. Other national ethnic groups represented are German, English, Italian, Swiss and Irish.
Croatian immigration to Punta Arenas was a crucial development in the region of Magallanes and the city in particular. Currently, this influence is still reflected in the names of shops, streets and many buildings. Punta Arenas is said to have the largest percentage of Croatians in the world outside Croatia and the former Yugoslavia.
Punta Arenas also has the largest percentage of residents of British descent in the whole of Chile.
Punta Arenas is home to the southernmost Hindu temple in the world, which is used by the relatively small, but significant, Sindhi community in Punta Arenas. Sindhi merchants began arriving in the area during the early 1900s, and today constitute one of the largest communities of Indians in Chile.