2020 - Chile - Punta Arenas - City View from Cerro de la Cruz
City view from a tourist stop above the city.
In 1848, Chile set up a penal colony that grew into Punta Arenas – positioned so that the fledging state could control the Strait of Magellan.
Swelled by European immigrants, it rode the 19th-century Patagonian sheep-farming boom to become a wool-production centre – perfectly placed on maritime export routes.
Local coal reserves, funded the European-style splendour of the city’s mansions. It was renamed Magallanes from 1927 to 1938, but the Panama canal had robbed the strait of its importance.
The slump was arrested with the 1945 discovery of oil, and now the Antarctic linkup.
2020 - Chile - Punta Arenas - City View from Cerro de la Cruz
City view from a tourist stop above the city.
In 1848, Chile set up a penal colony that grew into Punta Arenas – positioned so that the fledging state could control the Strait of Magellan.
Swelled by European immigrants, it rode the 19th-century Patagonian sheep-farming boom to become a wool-production centre – perfectly placed on maritime export routes.
Local coal reserves, funded the European-style splendour of the city’s mansions. It was renamed Magallanes from 1927 to 1938, but the Panama canal had robbed the strait of its importance.
The slump was arrested with the 1945 discovery of oil, and now the Antarctic linkup.