Patagonia, located on the southern tip of South America, is usually assumed to extend from latitude 39 down to latitude 55 but there is not an exact delimitation of it. On the map you see the argentinian portion of Patagonia, but the corresponding part of Chile is also assumed to be part of Patagonia. Its area is approximately 900000 sq. km. (slightly larger than that of France and Germany together and slightly smaller than the states of Texas and Colorado together)

In the regions bordering the Andean Cordillera the forests abound, as the amount of precipitation is rather high. But as one moves eastwards the decrease in precipitation leads to a consequent decrease in vegetation. In the steppes that extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Andes shrub grassland is almost the only vegetation to be found. The dryness of the region is exacerbated by the combination of high evaporation and persistent westerly winds. The most typical animals of Patagonia are the guanaco and the nandu.

Its indigenous population was composed by three groups: the "canoe people" (Yamana and Kaweskar) who depended basically on marine resources and lived on the Fuegian archipelagos, the "foot people" (Selk'nam and Haush) who were terrestrial hunters in the mainland of Tierra del Fuego and the Tehuelches (see pic on the left), also terrestrial and nomadic hunters, divided in southern Tehuelches (Aonikenk) who lived in southeast patagonia, and the northern tehuelches (Gununa'kena) who lived in northeast Patagonia. Before the coming of the Europeans, the calculated populations of these tribus were: Tehuelches: 2500-3000, Foot people: 3000-4000, Canoe People: 6000+. Now all that is left is a handful of Tehuelches. Lola Kiepja, the last fuegian aborigin, died in Ushuahia in 1975.

The first europeans to sail along the patagonian costs were Ferdinand of Magallanes and his crew in 1520. Their first meeting with the aborigins (Tehuelches) was recorded by Antonio Pigafetta, the chronicler of the expedition, in a by now famous passage:

"One day, when no one was expecting it, we saw a giant, completely naked, by the sea. He danced and jumped and, singing, spread sand and dust over his head...He was so tall that the tallest among us reached only to his waist. He was truly well built [1]...The captain named these kind of people Pataghoni. They have no houses but huts, like the Egyptians. They live on raw meat and eat a kind of sweet root which they call capac. The two giants we had on board ship ate their way through a large basket of biscuits, and ate rats without skinning them. They used to drink a half bucket of water at once.[2]"