Patagonia: pata: foot; gonia: large.

The word Patagonia was first used by the Spanish explores who arrived in Argentina in the early 1500's. They found oversized footprints in the snow and assumed the natives had enormous feet. They learned later that the natives used snowshoes when traveling in the deep snow. However, they kept referring to the region as Patagonia.

Patagonia was originally home to the Tehuelche Indians, who may have come from Tierra del Fuego. They are thought to have existed about 5,100 years ago until the later 1700's when Spanish explorers attempted to assimilate them into their culture. They first colony from Spain started in 1780 to 1807.

Patagonia is a 260,000 square mile region of Argentina and Chile that covers nearly all land south the 400 parallel. The majority of Patagonia lies on an arid plateau that slowly increases in altitude in the westerly direction. Along the foothills of the Andes Mountains, climates vary from semiarid to lush green forests. The lakes and rivers of Patagonia are some of the most beautiful in the world. Crystal clear and turquoise waters make up extensive chains of rivers and lakes which flow through matrices of crisscrossing glacial valleys thus breaking and adoring the Andean Cordillera.

Many people have described this region as a mixture of Montana, Utah, western Oregon, parts of California and other western states. Wildlife is abundant throughout the region while the ration of persons to kilometers is 1:1.

	Butch Cassidy home, Cholila, Patagonia

Additional information on the region lies below.

I LOCATION
II GENERAL DESCRIPTION
III SIZE
V ECONOMY
VI CLIMATE
VII SOIL AND DRAINAGE

LOCATION

Patagonia is located in the southern region of South America, in both Argentina and Chile. Its latitude is 37 to 51 S. On the western border lies the Patagonian Andes with the Colorado River to the north and the Atlantic Ocean along the Eastern coast. Patagonia ends at the Straits of Magellan, and Tierra del Fuego is also considered to be part of Patagonia.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Patagonia is a semiarid, scrub plateau in South America. It consists of a tableland, terrace-like progression of land until it reaches the foothills of the Patagonian Andes. The steppe-like plains are treeless and consist of scrubby grasses and bushes. The terrace land begins on the eastern side of Patagonia along the coast with high cliffs, which are separated from the ocean by narrow coastal plains. From the cliffs moving westward at an elevation of 300ft, the land rises along the Rio Negro in a series of terraces until finally it reaches the base of the Patagonian Andes at an elevation of 3000 ft.. Beds of rivers, such as the Colorado, Negro, Chico, and Santa Cruz, cut into the tableland, creating deep, wide valleys with high cliffs on the sides. There are also several beautiful lakes, like Buenos Aires and Pueyrredon that have pristine clear waters and are considered to be some of the most outstanding in the world. The Patagonian Andes drastically shoot up from the foothills and consists of steep and jagged mountains.

SIZE

Patagonia is a region in the south of South America that covers 260,000 square miles, including almost the entire southern portion of Argentina, as well as some of Chile.

HISTORY

Patagonia was originally home to the Tehuelche Indians, who were thought to come from the Tierra del Fuego. They are said to have existed almost 5,100 years ago until the Spanish explorers assimilated them into the Spanish culture around the end of the 16th century. Spain tried to colonize Patagonia before the English and established a colony there from 1780 to 1807.

When Argentina became independent, Patagonia was left alone until the government cleared all Indians out of the region. They then tried to settle the region and make it part of the national state, but not enough people were interested in the region except for a few temporary miners from Chile. Patagonia's population is mostly rural today and strung along the upper valley of the Negro River and at Comodoro Rivadavia.

ECONOMY

Around the Comodoro Rivadavia and Neuquen are most of Argentina's reserves of oil and natural gas and are considered to be Patagonia's most valuable mineral asset. There are also deposits of iron ore, coal, lead, manganese, tungsten, copper, gold, and uranium.

There is also a hydroelectric resource because of the damming of the Neuquen and Limay rivers in the west of Patagonia. This has also caused large reservoirs, making irrigation for agriculture possible along the Negro River. Some major crops in Patagonia are peaches, plums, almonds, apples, pears, olives, grapes, and alfalfa.

Tourism has risen in Patagonia since the end of W.W.II, with the increasing number of wildlife reserves and national parks established along the Patagonian Andes.

CLIMATE

Patagonia's climate is heavily influenced by the South Pacific westerly air current, which brings humid winds from the ocean. These winds loose that humidity has they pass over the Patagonian Andes and are dry when they reach the terraces of Patagonia.

Patagonia is divided into two climate zones, north and south, by drawing a line from the Andes at latitude 39 to a point south of the Valdes Peninsula at 43 S.

The north of Patagonia is semiarid, with an annual temperature between 54 and 68 F; the rainfall varies from 4 to 17 in. annually. The north has mainly open bush land with grass in the sandy areas and irrigated crops in the valleys. Sunshine is minimal along the coast, but plentiful inland in the northwest. The winds from the southwest are dry, strong, and cold.

The south of Patagonia has a cold, dry climate, with temperatures higher along the coast than inland and strong westerly winds. Annual temperatures in the southern zone range from 40 to 55 F with the maximum being 93 F and the minimum between 16 and -27 F. There are heavy snows in the winter and frosts throughout the year. Spring and fall allow little transition between winter and summer. The average rainfall is between 5 and 8 in.

DRAINAGE AND SOIL

In Patagonia the deep, wide valleys that cut through the tableland are all former beds of rivers that flowed from the Andes to the Atlantic, now only a few have permanent streams from the Andes like the Colorado, Negro, Chico, and Santa Cruz. Most valleys contain streams that have their source east of the Andes.

The Andes and tableland are connected by a series of lakes found in glacier troughs that are damned by glacial landforms of unsorted till. The lakes north of lake Nahuel Huapi drain into the Atlantic, but those south of Nahuel Huapi drain to the Pacific through deep canyons cut from east to west across the Andes by head ward erosion.

The best soils in Patagonia are found north of the Negro River. South, the soils become more arid and stony, and are littered with stream-rounded pebbles, called grava patagonica.

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By Matthew and Simon
Encyclopedia Britannica