MAGELLAN STRAIT, THE UNION OF THE BIGGEST OCEANS

The Magellan Strait zone is located in the southern extreme of the American continent. The sector includes the Strait itself, all the channels and fiords around the Brunswick peninsula including the Otway gulf, Riesco island and Skyring gulf (western side of the peninsula) and Magdalena Island, Pali Aike National Park up to the coast edge of Punta Dungeness lighthouse (eastern side). The tourist macrozone of Magellan Strait bears the name of the Portuguese seafarer, discoverer of this southern pass in 1520.

The Magellan Strait has permanent importance for interocean navigation and for the inside maritime communications. It separates the American continent from Tierra del Fuego. Its longitude is 560 km. from Dungeness lighthouse, where it joins with the south Atlantic ocean, to the western mouthwhere it joins with the Pacific Ocean and is besidesthe main door to the Antarctic continent. It serves nowadays to the merchant shipping that do coastal traffic with the center of the country, shipping lines that transport import merchandise, scientific ships that operate at the Antarctic, big tourism cruises and ships of fishing fleets..



PUNTA ARENAS CITY

Punta Arenas is the capital city of Magallanes y Antartica Chilena Region. This city, besides being the nerve center of most of the access road to the southern zone of Chile, is also the capital city of the CHILEAN PATAGONIA.

The tourist attractions of this macrozone are varied: In Punta Arenas city an its neighborhood are penguin colonies, Fort Bulnes, and several trekking circuits in native woods areas; around Rio Verde, famous by its particular beauty and its variety of birds, there is a wide offer of rural tourism; in the eastern area of the Magellan Strait macrozone is the Pali Aike National Park, Dungeness lighthouse point of meeting with the Atlantic Ocean, ancient shipwrecks and the pioneer locality of San Gregorio.