Puerto Williams

Puerto Williams (before called Puerto Luisa) is a city  and port in southern Chile, located on the northern coast of Navarino Island and on the southern shore of the Beagle Channel. It is situated in the Magallanes and Chilean Antarctic Region, within the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve, and administratively serves as the capital of both its commune, Cape Horn, and the Chilean Antarctic Province. 

Located at a latitude of almost 55° S, it is the southernmost city in Chile and is called the "southernmost city in the world", a title disputed by the Argentine city of Ushuaia, located on the northern shore of the Beagle Channel. 

 Physical geography 
Puerto Williams is on the north coast of Navarino Island, which is part of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago situated at the southern tip of South America between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. With its 2,470 Navarino, the fourth largest island in the archipelago, covers an area of 1,000 km². It is located south of Tierra del Fuego's main island and separated from it by the Beagle Channel. The width of this channel from Punta Gusano to the main island is 4 km. km.

The terrain of the southern part of the archipelago is mountainous, as it constitutes an extension of the Andes mountain range called the Fuegian Andes, which, unlike the continental sections, has an east-west direction.

Navarino Island has a subglacial and more rounded relief than the abrupt and steep relief of neighboring Hoste Island, the other large island in the southern part of the archipelago. The summits rarely exceed 1000 m above sea level, with Dientes de Navarino peak being the highest summit on the island at 1118 m above sea level. The gentle relief of the island's periphery allowed for the establishment of ranches, agricultural activity, and the exploitation of the native forest, activities that were not possible on Hoste, which remained uninhabited.

The city is located on the Scotia Plate, just over 40 km south of the Fagnano-Magallanes fault, a regional seismogenic fault system, oriented east - west that coincides with the transform boundary between the South American (to the north) and Scotia (to the south) plates, with medium seismicity; whose last major expression occurred on , at 22:30 (UTC-3), with a magnitude of approximately 7.8 on the Richter scale.

On May 2, 2025, at 09:58 (UTC−3), an earthquake of magnitude 7.4 Mw was recorded at 40 km south of the Diego Ramírez Islands, with its epicenter in the Shackleton Fracture Zone, which separates the Scotia Plate from the Antarctic Plate in the Drake Passage. The event occurred approximately 200 km south of the Diego Ramírez Islands. km from Puerto Williams and had a maximum intensity of V on the Mercalli scale in the town. No material damage, injuries, or fatalities were reported. The earthquake triggered a tsunami warning issued five minutes after the event, prompting the preventive evacuation of the coastline and mid-elevation areas, which remained in effect for much of the day.
In the Köppen climate classification, Puerto Williams has a tundra climate (ET), bordering on the oceanic subpolar zone. Other authors describe it as a cold variant of the "humid Patagonian" climate. Although temperatures are cold year-round, the town is nestled among tall Magellanic forests, which still survive on its outskirts. Annual temperature variation is minimal. The cold is so persistent that occasional snowfalls have been recorded even in the middle of the austral summer. Precipitation, which is usually in the form of snow in winter, is distributed fairly evenly throughout the year, totaling 512 mm. The rainfall amounts in millimeters, while seemingly small, are sufficient to make Puerto Williams a humid town due to the consistently low temperatures; the high average number of days with precipitation also contributes to this. Frosts are frequent, as is the phenomenon of freezing rain at the end of summer.

Strong winds from the West quadrant, originating in the South Pacific Ocean, often batter the area, which is why trees unprotected from storms grow following the direction of the wind, which causes them to be called "flag trees" because of the inclination they are forced to take.

The city is located in the Magellanic subantarctic forest ecoregion, the southernmost tree domain on the planet.

In the coastal strips and low valleys, an evergreen forest predominates, headed by the Magellanic coihue along with the canelo. Between 200 and 500 meters above sea level the canopy becomes mixed: the coihue shares space with the lenga (N. pumilio), which comes to dominate in the upper deciduous strip, accompanied by the ñirre (N. antarctica) on more exposed slopes. Above 800 m above sea level, the woody cover gives way to a high Andean tundra carpeted with cushions of herbaceous plants (such as Bolax gummifera) and extensive mats of lichens, a cushion landscape that retains moisture and tolerates extreme winds.
In the relatively dry and flat northern areas of Navarino, sparse steppe scrubland of evergreen broom and coirón grass appears, accompanied by grasses such as Rhytidosperma and Trisetum. On very compacted or poorly drained soils, creeping heaths dominated by murtilla and extensive peat bogs, formed mainly by pompón, thrive, storing large carbon reserves and covering more than 40% of the area of the island.

 Current threats 
The introduction of the North American beaver to Argentina in 1946 has become the greatest ecological alteration of the archipelago. Beaver densities on Navarino Island exceed those on Tierra del Fuego's main island and have already transformed thousands of hectares of forest, favoring its replacement by shrubs and wet grasslands.

Environmental authorities— CONAF, the Navy, and the Municipality—work alongside universities and NGOs on programs for beaver eradication, forest restoration, and the establishment of low-impact trails. This makes Puerto Williams a living laboratory for sub-Antarctic biocultural conservation, preserving one of the last intact temperate-cold landscapes on the planet and, consequently, its competitive value in special interest tourism.

 The southernmost city in the world 
Puerto Williams has official city status from the Chilean State, recognized as such by the National Institute of Statistics, and, being the southernmost city on the American continent, it is the southernmost city in the world. For years, Puerto Williams has been considered "the southernmost city in the world" by both Chilean and foreign media. It shares this title with Ushuaia in Argentina. Formerly, the Chilean city of Punta Arenas, with 131 thousand inhabitants, also used this designation for promotional and identity purposes.

Puerto Williams has many elements typical of any city: more than 75% of the population is not engaged in agriculture, it has a fire company, police station, hospital, religious centers, court, high school, university headquarters and museum.

Although it is not considered a city by the UN's criteria for classifying human settlements, the classification of populated centers in Chile depends on the country's internal territorial regulations and administration, without international organizations having any influence on the official designation of cities in the national context.

 Notes 

 References 

Category:Magallanes Region
Category:Cities in Chile
Category:1950s establishments in Chile