Punta Arenas (English: "Sandy Point") is a commune and the capital city of Chile's southernmost region, Magallanes and Antartica Chilena. The city was officially renamed Magallanes in 1927, but in 1938 it was changed back to Punta Arenas. It is the largest city south of the 46th parallel south.

Sitting by the Strait of Magellan Punta Arenas was established originally as a tiny penal colony in 1848 but became during the 19th increasingly large and important as international trade across the straits grew and the countryside around experienced a gold rush and a sheep farming boom around 1900. Chile effectively used Punta Arenas to excert soveignity in southernmost South America leading to the strait of Magellan being recognized as Chilean in the Boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina. The geopolitical importance of Punta Arenas has remained high in the 20 and 21th century as the city is important for logistics in the Antarctic peninsula.

Located on the Brunswick Peninsula. Punta Arenas is the third largest city in the entire Patagonian Region, after the more northerly Argentine cities of Neuquén and Comodoro Rivadavia. In 2002, it had a population of 120,000.[4] It is roughly 1418.4 km from the coast of Antarctica.

How to get there:

There is an international airport on the outskirts of the city with numerous connections to Puerto Montt and Santiago. Planes are met by taxis and transfer buses making it easy to transfer to downtown Punta Arenas, except during regional strikes when it may be necessary to walk 26 km to the centre of the city.

Buses run daily from Puerto Natales as well as Rio Gallegos, Argentina.

There are frequent buses from Ushuaia, Argentina, that will take you to the city in about 11 hours. The trip has interesting scenery and is far less costly than flying: the flight from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas is overpriced mainly because of its "international flight" designation.