Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del fuego, seen from space.
A schematic of the Magellan Strait, showing the archipelago

Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago at the southern tip of South America. The Magellan Strait sepearates it from the South American Mainland. The archipelago consists of a big island, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego and a number of smaller islands. The land area of the archipelago is 73,746 square kilometers. With about 47,000 square kilometers, Isla Grande takes roughly half of the total land mass. About 127,000 people live in the part belonging to Argentina. The Argentine part is called Tierra del Fuego Province, the Chilean part has the name Magallanes and Antártica Region. The biggest cities on the main island are Rio Grande with 57,000 people and Ushuaia in the Argentine part, and Porvenir with 5700 inhabitants and Puerto Williams with 2300 people in the Chile part.