Southernmost city in the world: what Punta Arenas actually is

What it is

Punta Arenas is the southernmost city in the world, at 53°09'S, ahead of Ushuaia. It is the capital of the Magallanes Region and of the Chilean Antarctic and South Atlantic territories, and it has around 140,000 inhabitants. That population is the point: this is a working port city, with a port, a shipyard, a regional government and a university, not a settlement that exists to look at the view.

It was founded in 1849, after the abandonment of Fuerte Bulnes a few years earlier. The fort had been built in 1843 on a harbour that turned out to be unworkable in a serious way — the channel silts up — and when the Chilean government gave up on it, the settlement moved to the sheltered bay at Brunswick Peninsula and became Punta Arenas. The city that replaced the fort was never a frontier outpost in the way the fort was; it was founded as the capital of a territory, and it still behaves like one.

Why the title is not a gimmick

The phrase is worth a moment because it is a title with teeth: it is not decorative, it is administrative. Punta Arenas governs the Chilean Antarctic Territory and the South Atlantic islands — it is the departure point for the scientists and staff who work in Antarctica. There are flights from here to the Antarctic Peninsula region, and the city's institutions exist to serve a territory that extends far beyond the horizon in every direction.

That is also why the population holds at 140,000 in a place where nothing grows and the light is wrong for half the year. People live here because there is work: the port, the fishing fleet, the regional government, the air base, the university, and the supply chain that feeds Antarctic science.

What to do, from a base of an afternoon

The centre is on the hillside above the port, and it is compact enough to walk. Plaza Muñoz Gamero has the monument to the discoverers in the middle of it and the Palace of Sara Braun on one side, built by a shipping magnate in the 1880s and now the city's mayor's office. The regional museum covers the history of the area's shipwrecks, which is the region's history in one room, and the Municipal Cemetery holds the hikers of 1880, the search parties that went out from this port and did not come back.

And then there is the train. The Austral Railway was built to carry mail and goods from the port to the interior, and the section that survives runs a short seasonal route out of the station. It is a museum line more than a transport line now, but it runs on the original rails in the original gauge, which is a strange and good thing to be in the middle of.

The 4-hour walking tour of the city at US$ 76 is the only trip in this catalogue that stays on the pavement. It is a reasonable way to cover the centre if you arrive between boat excursions.

What to do from a base of a full day

This is where the city's real advantage shows: everything on the water leaves from here. The fort at Fuerte Bulnes, a 4.5-hour trip at US$ 55, is the cheapest way to get onto the Strait and the shortest commitment of the twelve trips. The boat trip to Magdalena Island at US$ 170 for six hours is the most reviewed one in the catalogue, at 272 reviews, and it is the one to book if you have a half-day and want the penguins.

The full navigation of the Strait at US$ 365 is the twelve-hour trip, and it is the one that covers the whole water: the Atlantic Mouth, the narrows, Cape Froward, the whale route and the glaciers. The 15-hour Tierra del Fuego trip to the king penguin colony on Isla Dawson is the longest and the strangest — it is two days compressed into one, and you should read the number as two days.

The answer to any question about Punta Arenas is usually that the water starts here. That is why the city exists in this form, and why it is the right base for the Strait even if you are not the kind of traveller who planned to go on a boat.

Practical notes

It is the arrival point for the region: the only city here with an international airport, with connections through Santiago. Almost every itinerary starts and ends here, whatever else it includes.

The town's setting is worth noticing for itself — it looks across a wide channel to Tierra del Fuego, with the mountains of the Darwin Cordillera behind it, and on a clear evening you can see Cape Horn's country on the horizon to the east. It is a city with a view of the thing it exists to serve.

And be clear about what it is not. It is not a resort town; the centre is a working city with a working port. If you want the Southern Hemisphere's most southerly city with restaurants, a museum and a railway, it delivers all three. If you want a place to slow down, Puerto Natales is quieter and Torres del Paine is what you are actually here for.