Ushuaia ( , ) is the capital of Tierra del Fuego, Antártida e Islas del Atlántico Sur Province, Argentina. With a population of 89,606 and a location below the 54th parallel south latitude, Ushuaia claims the title of world's southernmost city.
Ushuaia is located in a wide bay on the southern coast of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. It is bounded on the north by the Martial mountain range and on the south by the Beagle Channel. It is the only municipality in the Department of Ushuaia and has an area of . It was founded on 12 October 1884 by Augusto Lasserre and is located on the shores of the Beagle Channel surrounded by the mountain range of the Martial Glacier, in the Bay of Ushuaia. In addition to being an administrative center, it is a light industrial port and tourist destination. Ushuaia is located roughly from the Antarctic Peninsula and is one of five internationally recognized Antarctic gateway cities; it is one of two South American cities with that status along with Chile's Punta Arenas.
Toponyms
The word Ushuaia comes from the Yaghan language: and ('bay' or 'cove') and means "deep bay' or 'bay to background'. The act creating the subprefecture in 1884 cites the name "Oshovia", one of the many orthographic variations of the word. Its demonym is .
History The Selkʼnam people, also called the Ona, first arrived in Tierra del Fuego about 10,000 years ago. The southern group of people indigenous to the area, the Yaghan (also known as Yámana), who occupied what is now Ushuaia, lived in continual conflict with the northern inhabitants of the island.
For much of the latter half of the 19th century, the eastern portion of Tierra del Fuego was populated by a substantial majority of nationals who were not Argentine citizens, including a number of British subjects. Ushuaia was founded informally by British missionaries, following previous British surveys, long before Argentine nationals or government representatives arrived there on a permanent basis. The British ship HMS Beagle, under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy, first reached the channel on January 29, 1833, during its maiden voyage surveying Tierra del Fuego. The city was originally named by early British missionaries using the native Yámana name for the area. Much of the early history of the city and its hinterland is described in Lucas Bridges’s book Uttermost Part of the Earth (1948). The name Ushuaia first appears in letters and reports of the South American Mission Society in England. The British missionary Waite Hockin Stirling became the first European to live in Ushuaia when he stayed with the Yámana people between 18 January and mid-September 1869. In 1870 more British missionaries arrived to establish a small settlement. The following year the first marriage was performed. During 1872, 36 baptisms and seven marriages and the first European birth (Thomas Despard Bridges) in Tierra del Fuego were registered. The first house constructed in Ushuaia was a pre-assembled three room home prepared in the Falkland Islands in 1870 for Reverend Thomas Bridges. One room was for the Bridges family, a second was for a Yámana married couple, while the third served as the chapel.
During 1873, Juan and Clara Lawrence, the first Argentine citizens to visit Ushuaia, arrived to teach school. That same year Julio Argentino Roca, who later served as Argentine President twice, promoted the establishment of a penal colony for re-offenders, modeled after one in Tasmania, Australia, in an effort to secure permanent residents from Argentina and to help establish Argentine sovereignty over all of Tierra del Fuego. But only after the Boundary Treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina did formal efforts get under way to establish the township and its prison.
During the 1880s, many gold prospectors came to Ushuaia following rumors of large gold fields, which proved to be false. On 12 October 1884, as part of the South Atlantic Expedition, Commodore Augusto Lasserre established the sub-division of Ushuaia, with the missionaries and naval officers signing the Act of Ceremony. Don Feliz M Paz was named Governor of Tierra del Fuego and in 1885 named Ushuaia as its capital. In 1885 the territory police was organized under Antonio A. Romero with headquarters also in Ushuaia. But it was not until 1904 that the Federal Government of Argentina recognized Ushuaia as the capital of Tierra del Fuego. The prison was formally announced in an executive order by the then-Acting President Roca in 1896.
Ushuaia suffered several epidemics, including typhus, pertussis, and measles, that much reduced the native population. But because the Yámana were not included in census data, the exact death toll is not known. The first census was held in 1893, which recorded 113 men and 36 women living in Ushuaia. By 1911 the Yámana had all practically disappeared, so the mission was closed. The population grew to 1,558 by the 1914 census.
In 1896 the prison received its first inmates, mainly re-offenders and dangerous prisoners transferred from Buenos Aires, but also some political prisoners. A separate military prison opened in 1903 at the nearby Puerto Golondrina. The two prisons merged in 1910, and that combined complex still stands today. Thus, during the first half of the 20th century, the city centered around the prison built by the Argentine government to increase the Argentine population and to ensure Argentine sovereignty over Tierra del Fuego. The prison followed the example of the British in Tasmania and the French in Devil's Island. Escape from Tierra del Fuego was similarly difficult, although two prisoners managed to escape into the surrounding area for a few weeks. The prison population thus became forced colonists and spent much of their time building the town with timber from the forest around the prison. They also built a railway to the settlement, now a tourist attraction known as the End of the World Train (Tren del Fin del Mundo), the southernmost railway in the world.
The prison operated until 1947, when President Juan Domingo Perón closed it by executive order in response to the many reports of abuse, unhealthy conditions, and unsafe practices. Most of the guards stayed in Ushuaia, while the prisoners were relocated to other jails farther north. After the prison closed, it became a part of the Ushuaia Naval Base, functioning as a storage and office facility until the early 1990s. Later it was converted into the current Museo Maritimo de Ushuaia.
The naval base at Ushuaia was active during the Falklands War of 1982. The Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano, subsequently sunk by the British Fleet, sailed from the Port of Ushuaia, where a memorial was erected in February 1996. This also led to violence in the 2014 Top Gear: Patagonia Special as the locals had taken offense to the license plate of the car driven by presenter Jeremy Clarkson, which read "H982 FKL". The protesters thought that the number plate was a direct reference to the Falklands War fought between Argentina and the United Kingdom, and that it was a fake, deliberately designed for this specific trip to their country. The show's producers attempted to negotiate with Argentinian officials saying that the number plate was not fake (something that was later proven to be correct). Negotiations between the show's producers and officials representing the protesters were unsuccessful, and the production crew were ordered by the officials to leave the Tierra del Fuego area immediately.
Geography
Physical geography Location
Ushuaia is located on Ushuaia Bay at above sea level, surrounded to the west, north, and east by the . It is the only city accessed from the rest of the country by crossing part of the Andes mountain range, which runs along the southern edge of Tierra del Fuego. National Route 3 crosses the Sierra Alvear through the Garibaldi Pass to enter the Carabajal Valley, where it follows the Olivia River through the Sierra Sorondo to the Beagle Channel and Ushuaia Bay. For this reason, it is considered the only trans-Andean city (ciudad trasandina) in Argentina.
Ushuaia has long been described as the southernmost city in the world. While there are settlements farther south, the only one of any notable size is Puerto Williams, a Chilean settlement of some 2,000 residents. As a center of population, commerce, and culture, and as a town of significant size and importance, Ushuaia, however, clearly qualifies as a city. A 1998 article in the newspaper Clarín reported that the designation "southernmost city in the world" had been transferred to Puerto Williams by a joint committee from Argentina and Chile, but this was denied by Argentine authorities, and the Secretariat of Tourism of Argentina continues to use the slogan in official documentation and websites.
Surrounding mountains
The view to the northeast is dominated by Monte Olivia and Cerro Cinco Hermanos; to the northwest is Cerro Maritial on a ridge that holds the small Martial glacier. To the southwest, across the Beagle Channel, peaks on the Peninsula Dumas on Hoste Island are prominent.
Climate Ushuaia features a significantly ocean-moderated mild tundra climate (Köppen: ET, bordering on Cfc; Trewartha: Ftkk), with cool, but not cold, conditions throughout the year (average temperature remains above 0 °C and below 10 °C year round). Vegetation around the city thus does not resemble typical tundra but is instead heavily forested. Temperatures at the Ushuaia – Malvinas Argentinas International Airport average in the coolest month (July), and in the warmest month (January). The record low is in July, and the record high is in January. On average, the city experiences 146 days of precipitation a year, with many cloudy and foggy days, averaging 206 cloudy days a year. This results in Ushuaia receiving an average of 3.93 hours of sunshine per day (an annual total of 1,434 hours) or about 30.2% of possible sunshine. Despite receiving only average annual precipitation, Ushuaia is very humid, with an average humidity of 77%.
Summers tend to be cloudy and windy, with maximum temperatures averaging around during the day and about at night. Temperatures of or more occur only on a handful of days, and night frost is always possible, as well as days below . Temperatures gradually diminish during the autumn, to reach maximum temperatures of about and minimum temperatures of in winter, with frequent snow, sleet and rain showers. Some winters may bring extended periods of frost and snow with a perpetual snow cover, whereas other winters might just bring snowstorms followed by thaws. Temperatures then very slowly recover during the spring, but snow showers and frost are a common occurrence until the beginning of the summer in December, and they might occur even in midsummer. Frost is common in any month.
The southwestern winds make the outer islands wetter, reaching at Isla de los Estados (Island of the States). Because temperatures are cool throughout the year, there is little evaporation. Snow is common in winter and regularly occurs throughout the year. Ushuaia occasionally experiences snow in summer (from November to March). Due to its high southern latitude, the city's climate is influenced by Antarctica. The duration of daylight varies from more than 17 hours in summer to just over 7 hours in winter.
Flora Ushuaia is surrounded by Magellanic subpolar forests. On the hills around the town, the following indigenous trees are found: Drimys winteri (winter's bark), Maytenus magellanica (hard-log mayten) and several species of Nothofagus (southern beech). Trees in Ushuaia tend to follow the wind direction, and are therefore called "flag-trees" for their uni-directional growth pattern. "Originally this life form was considered genetically determined [Holtmeier, 1981] but the term was subsequently used to designate all genetically or environmentally determined stunted and dwarf trees at the timberland."