Tierra del Fuego

Tierra del Fuego Facts

• Perhaps most notably, the breathtaking Tierra del Fuego tops the list of many as one of the most beautiful spots on earth. The truly astounding location holds this high status despite its highly rugged landscape.
• In addition, this mesmerizing location also serves as home to numerous species of animals and plants. Furthermore, to make this even more awesome, some of the plants evolved as completely unique in nature.
• This stunning location constitutes one of the most visually striking archipelagos in the world. However, most of its total area consists of one larger island, and a group of numerous much smaller islands.
• Despite the extreme ruggedness of much of its terrain, this site nevertheless also shows evidence of a rather surprising past. That’s because it shows signs of human habitation going back more than 8,000 years.

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Tierra del Fuego Physical Description

This amazing archipelago of Tierra del Fuego principally consists of the one large island, going by the same name as the archipelago. The stunning primary island itself  is often simply referred to as either Tierra del Fuego or Isla Grande. The one island alone has a total area measuring roughly 18,572 sq mi (48, 100 sq km).

As can easily be seen, this breathtaking location boasts an incredible array of impressive landscapes. These marvels of Nature include such features as numerous bays and channels. But, amazingly, the island even holds several glaciers. Some of the small, ancient glaciers even extend all the way to the ocean.

Of further interest remains the fact that the topography can be divided into four regions. These consist of an outer archipelago region, a mountain region in the south, a plains region, and a sub-Andean zone between the last two zones. Each has its own separate and quite distinct geography.

Tierra del Fuego Location, Climate, and Life

Firstly, the wondrous main island of Tierra del Fuego is actually divided between two different countries in South America. The country of Chile controls 61.43% of the land area. Meanwhile, the country of Argentina controls the rest.

Perhaps even more surprising than other factors is its climate. That’s because this rather incredible spot on the earth possesses a subpolar oceanic climate. Its summers typically remain short and cool, while winters are long, wet, and moderate.

However, the southernmost of the islands in the archipelago possess a sub-antarctic climate, similar to such locations as the Aleutian Islands. Here, the harsh weather conditions makes any appreciable growth of foliage virtually impossible.

As a result of this, only 30% of the islands possess forests of any size. Yet, many of the the tree varieties that do grow bear fruit. Much of the remaining area comprises either steppes or semi-arid deserts, creating an overall harsh landscape.

Finally, and somewhat surprisingly, a comparatively large number of animal species appear to thrive in the region. These include such creatures and foxes, seagulls, penguins, condors, owls. Several varieties of whales also call the local waters home.

Features Sharing Its Region

                              

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