Magellan’s “giants” named the cone of southern South America
Patagonia covers southern Argentina and Chile where Andes, fjords, steppe, and ice meet. Magellan in 1520 called local people patagones, likely Tehuelche, whom his crew mistook for giants, and the label stuck to the whole cone. Many residents today call themselves Patagonians rather than Latinos.
Argentine Patagonia often starts at the Colorado and Barrancas rivers running Andes-to-Atlantic; Chilean shares lean on fishing, salmon farms, and tourism while Argentine ranges run sheep, oil, and gas. At contact most peoples hunted and gathered; only a northwestern fringe farmed a little. People walked the eastern plains and paddled dugout canoes and plank dalcas through the western channels, and in the colonial era northeastern groups took up mounted nomadism once horses returned.
After independence both Chile and Argentina pushed settlers and armies south in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Indigenous numbers fell sharply as newcomers arrived from mainland Chile, Chiloé, Argentina and Europe. A Boundary Treaty in 1881 drew the line between the two claims. Welsh colonists from Wales and North America kept their own schools, language, flag and festivals.
Chiloé toponyms preserve Chono roots under later Mapudungun dominance. Chubut’s Teushen-linked chupat speaks to “transparency” and river clarity in transitional Tehuelche speech. Lakes, temperate rainforest, and ice fields still define postcard Patagonia more than any single border post.
On the Argentine side the region spans five provinces plus the southernmost district of Buenos Aires Province, while Chile counts up to four regions, or on a narrower reading only Aysén and Magallanes. Between the two oceans, the Drake Passage, the Beagle Channel and Magellan’s strait cut the southern edge. Communities of Patagonians also live abroad, from Saltcoats in Saskatchewan to New South Wales and the Falkland Islands.
Source: Patagonia
