• Located at the southern end of South America, the Patagonian region embraces partly the territory of Chile and Argentina and remains one of the world’s last great wildernesses.
• `Hundreds of peaks, snowy massifs fantastically covered with ice, bold needles of granite and clayey schists have not only never been scaled but are still today shrouded in the mystery of their rugged, tempestuous heights’. Padre Alberto de Agostini – Andes Patagónicos
• The land area of Patagonia is 787,000 sq km. The population of Patagonia is 1,740,000 (2001 census) Patagonia’s population density is 2.21/km² As a comparison, HMS Endurance is based in Portsmouth and this city has a population density of 4,689/km²
• Among the first Europeans to successfully settle in Patagonia were the Welsh. Their ambition was to free themselves from English oppression. In 1865, 153 men, women and children sailed from Liverpool in search of a new home.
• The plains in Argentinian Patagonia are home to 5.5 million sheep.
• James Ryan and Harry Place, aka Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid came to Patagonia in 1901. Whether they came to ranch or to rob remains a mystery.
• Patagonia has 31 national parks, which cover an area, the size of Spain and Portugal combined, with the most incredible landscapes – ancient glaciers, mountains, lakes and pristine coastline. The national parks system in Argentinian Patagonia was the vision of naturalist Franciso Pascasio Moreno who donated the land for Argentina’s first national park.
• In Patagonian Chile there are around 5,000 rivers.
• Patagonia was once home to thousands of dinosaurs and the evidence is everywhere. Huge footprints by the side of the lake in Villa El Chocón, point to the existence of plant-eating sauropods and ornithopods. While thousands of dinosaur eggs have been found in northern Neuquén.
• Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world and was nominated as one to the World Capitals of the Millennium.

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