Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan.
The Strait of Magellan, also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. The strait is considered the most important natural passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It was navigated by canoe-faring indigenous peoples including the Kawésqar for thousands of years. The strait is approximately 570 km long and 2 km wide at its narrowest point. In 1520, the Spanish expedition of Ferdinand Magellan, after whom the strait is named, became the first Europeans to discover it.
Ushuaia is the capital of Tierra del Fuego, Antártida e Islas del Atlántico Sur Province, Argentina. With a population of 82,615 and a location below the 54th parallel south latitude, Ushuaia claims the title of world's southernmost city.
Tierra del Fuego, officially the Province of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands, is the southernmost, smallest, and least populous Argentine province. The provincial capital city is Ushuaia, from a native word meaning "bay towards the end".
Southernmost settlements are cities, towns, weather stations or permanent military bases which are farther south than latitude 45°S. They are closely related to the Southern Ocean or either the Roaring Forties or Furious Fifties. Antarctic bases are excluded due to not having a permanent population.
The Selk'nam, also known as the Onawo or Ona people, are an indigenous people in the Patagonian region of southern Argentina and Chile, including the Tierra del Fuego islands. They were one of the last native groups in South America to be encountered by migrant Europeans in the late 19th century. In the mid-19th century, there were about 4,000 Selk'nam; by 1919 there were 297, and by 1930 just over 100.
The Yahgan are a group of indigenous peoples in the Southern Cone of South America. Their traditional territory includes the islands south of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, extending their presence into Cape Horn, making them the world's southernmost human population.
Julius Popper, known in Spanish as Julio Popper, was a Romanian-born Argentine engineer, adventurer, and explorer. He was known as a modern "conquistador" of Tierra del Fuego in southern South America, and was both a controversial and influential figure. Popper was one of the main perpetrators of the genocide against the native Selk'nam people in the islands, and the circumstances surrounding his own death remain a mystery.
Anne MacKaye Chapman was a Franco-American ethnologist who focused on the people of Mesoamerica writing several books, co-producing movies, and capturing sound recordings of rare languages from the Northern Triangle of Central America to Cape Horn in South America.
Esteban Lucas Bridges was an Anglo-Argentine author, explorer, and rancher. After fighting for the British during the First World War, he married and moved with his wife to South Africa, where they developed a ranch with her brother.
Fuegians are the indigenous inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip of South America.
Argentine postage stamps were first issued in 1858 by the Argentine Confederation and nationally by the new Republic's National Postal Service in 1862. Due to the continuing civil wars, a number of provinces and territories, particularly in the then-remote far north and far south, continued to issue their own postage brands and stamps for some time, afterwards; some of these issues have since become collectors' items.
Mount Tarn is a small mountain located on the southernmost part of the Strait of Magellan, in Brunswick Peninsula, about 70 km south of Punta Arenas, Chile. It is in the southern extreme of continental Chile very close to Cape Froward, surrounded by historic places such as Fort Bulnes and Puerto del Hambre.
The region of the Beagle Channel, explored by Robert FitzRoy in the 1830s, was one of the last to be colonized by Chile and Argentina. The cold weather, the long distances from other inhabited regions, and the shortage of transport and subsistence, kept it far from the governmental task.
The Boundary Treaty of 1881 between Argentina and Chile was signed on 23 July 1881 in Buenos Aires by Bernardo de Irigoyen, on the part of Argentina, and Francisco de Borja Echeverría, on the part of Chile, with the aim of establishing a precise and exact border between the two countries based on the uti possidetis juris principle. Despite dividing largely unexplored lands, the treaty laid the groundwork for nearly all of Chile's and Argentina's 5600 km current border.
José Menéndez Menéndez (1846–1918) was a Spanish businessman based in Argentina and Chilean Patagonia. He was the initiator of many large companies that remain to this day.
The Selk'nam genocide was the systematic extermination of the Selk'nam people, one of the three indigenous peoples of Tierra del Fuego, from the late 19th to early 20th centuries. Historians estimate that the genocide spanned a period of between ten and fifteen years, and resulted in the decline of the Selk'nam population from approximately 4,000 people during the 1880's to 500 by the early 1900's.
Thomas Bridges was an Anglican missionary and linguist, the first to set up a successful mission to the indigenous peoples in Tierra del Fuego, an archipelago shared by Argentina and Chile. Adopted and raised in England by George Pakenham Despard, he accompanied his father to Chile with the Patagonian Missionary Society. After an attack by indigenous people, in 1869 Bridges' father, Despard, left the mission at Keppel Island of the Falkland Islands, to return with his family to England. At the age of 17, Bridges stayed with the mission as its new superintendent. In the late 1860s, he worked to set up a mission at what is now the town of Ushuaia along the southern shore of Tierra del Fuego Island.
In late 19th and early 20th centuries, sheep farming expanded across the Patagonian grasslands making the southern regions of Argentina and Chile one of the world's foremost sheep farming areas. The sheep farming boom attracted thousands of immigrants from Chiloé and Europe to southern Patagonia. Early sheep farming in Patagonia was oriented towards wool production but changed over time with the development of industrial refrigerators towards meat export. Besides altering the demographic and economic outlook of Southern Patagonia the sheep farming boom also changed the steppe ecosystem.
Chilean colonization of the Strait of Magellan began in 1843 when an expedition founded Fuerte Bulnes. In 1848 the settlement of Punta Arenas was established further north in the strait and grew eventually to become the main settlement in the strait, a position it holds to this day. The Chilean settlement of the strait was crucial to establish its sovereignty claims in the area. Argentina formally recognised Chilean sovereignty in 1881. The Magallanes territory was made a regular Chilean province in 1928.
