The Strait of Magellan

Before the Panama Canal, a ship sailing between the Atlantic and the Pacific had two choices at the foot of South America: brave the open seas around Cape Horn or thread the Strait of Magellan. This sheltered, twisting channel through Chilean Patagonia was first navigated by Europeans in 1520, when Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese captain sailing for Spain, spent 38 days finding his way through. One of his ships, the Victoria, completed the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1522. The strait still carries cargo ships, cruise liners, fishing boats and ferries, and Punta Arenas on its northern shore is one of the southernmost cities in the world.

The strait runs about 570 kilometers from Cape Vírgenes on the Atlantic to Cape Pillar on Desolación Island at the Pacific end, separating mainland South America from Tierra del Fuego and the islands to the south. From the Atlantic it runs west through two narrows, the Primera and Segunda Angostura, then bends south past Punta Arenas to Cape Froward, the southernmost point of the American mainland, before turning northwest through mountain-walled fjord country. Its width ranges from about 2 kilometers, near Carlos III Island west of Cape Froward, to more than 30 kilometers. Fierce winds, strong tides, fog and narrow passages make it demanding, and Chilean pilotage is compulsory for most foreign ships. Ferries cross the eastern narrows to Tierra del Fuego, and its waters hold whales, dolphins and penguin colonies.

Magellan named the passage the Strait of All Saints, but it soon carried his name. Spain tried to hold it with settlements in the 1580s, and the colonists starved at a site later called Port Famine. Chile took possession in 1843, founding Fort Bulnes near today's Punta Arenas, and the Boundary Treaty of 1881 with Argentina placed the strait under Chilean sovereignty while declaring it neutral and open to ships of all nations. Argentina's territory touches only its Atlantic entrance. The opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 ended its role as a main route between the oceans, but it remains the lifeline of Chile's Magallanes region, with its ports, ferries and oil and gas fields, and Punta Arenas has become a base for cruise ships and research expeditions bound for Antarctica.

• Atlantic Ocean
  The world's second-largest ocean and great highway of history connects
• Pacific Ocean
  Earth's largest and deepest ocean connects
• The Spanish Empire
  The first global empire, spanning the Americas, the Philippines and outposts in Africa explored for
• Chile
  A ribbon of land between the Andes and the Pacific located in
• Patagonia
  Wind, ice, and the emptiest end of the Americas located in
• The Drake Passage
  The wild 800-kilometer gap between Cape Horn and Antarctica, the roughest crossing on Earth sheltered alternative to
• The Panama Canal
  The rain-fed staircase of locks that lifts ships across the Isthmus of Panama between the Atlantic and the Pacific superseded as main route by
• Argentina
  From Patagonia's ice to the pampas and the Andes touches