The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers in the west and deserts, tablelands, and steppes to the east.

This process brought a great decline of the indigenous populations, whose lives and habitats were disrupted by the arrival of thousands of immigrants from Argentina, the Chiloé Archipelago, mainland Chile, and Europe.

[11][12] A theory postulated by chronicler José Pérez García explains this holding that the Cuncos (also known as Veliches) settled in Chiloé Island in Pre-Hispanic times as a consequence of a push from more northern Huilliches who in turn were being displaced by Mapuches.

[12] In Chubut Province modern toponymy comes from the word "chupat" belonging to a transitional language between the southern and northern Tehuelche ethnic groups that were located in that region called Tewsün or Teushen.

[citation needed] Argentine Patagonia is for the most part a region of steppe-like plains, rising in a succession of 13 abrupt terraces about 100 m (330 ft) at a time, and covered with an enormous bed of shingle almost bare of vegetation.

Besides these transverse depressions (some of them marking lines of ancient interoceanic communication), others were occupied by either more or less extensive lakes, such as the Yagagtoo, Musters, and Colhue Huapi, and others situated to the south of Puerto Deseado in the center of the country.

[18] Erosion, which is caused principally by the sudden melting and retreat of ice aided by tectonic changes, has scooped out a deep longitudinal depression, best in evidence where in contact with folded Cretaceous rocks, which are lifted up by the Cenozoic granite.

This, together with the discovery of the perfect cranium of a turtle (chelonian) of the genus Niolamia, which is almost identical to Ninjemys oweni of the Pleistocene age in Queensland, forms an evident proof of the connection between the Australian and South American continents.

[26] Other specimens of the interesting fauna of Patagonia, belonging to the Middle Cenozoic, are the gigantic wingless birds, exceeding in size any hitherto known, and the singular mammal Pyrotherium, also of very large dimensions.

[30] The asthenospheric window associated to the triple junction disturbed previous patterns of mantle convection beneath Patagonia inducing an uplift of c. 1 km that reversed the Miocene transgression.

The Patagonian west coast, which belongs exclusively to Chile, has a cool oceanic climate, with summer maximum temperatures ranging from 14 °C in the south to 19 °C in the north (and nights between 5 and 11 °C) and very high precipitation, from 2,000 to more than 7,000 mm in local microclimates.

The natives are osmeriforms (Aplochiton and Galaxias), temperate perches (Percichthys), catfish (Diplomystes, Hatcheria and Trichomycterus), Neotropical silversides (Odontesthes) and characiforms (Astyanax, Cheirodon, Gymnocharacinus, and Oligosarcus).

[17] Based on artifacts found in the region, apparently hunting of guanaco, and to a lesser extent rhea (ñandú), were the primary food sources of tribes living on the eastern plains.

The settlements that he founded at Nombre de Jesús and San Felipe was neglected by the Spanish government, the latter being abandoned before Thomas Cavendish visited it in 1587 during his circumnavigation, and so desolate that he called it Port Famine.

The term is most likely derived from an actual character name, "Patagón", a savage creature confronted by Primaleón of Greece, the hero in the homonymous Spanish chivalry novel (or knight-errantry tale) by Francisco Vázquez.

This supposed race of Patagonian giants or Patagones entered into the common European perception of this then little-known and distant area, to be further fueled by subsequent reports of other expeditions and famous travelers such as Sir Francis Drake, which seemed to confirm these accounts.

[33] The concept and general belief persisted for a further 250 years and was to be sensationally reignited in 1767 when an "official" (but anonymous) account was published of Commodore John Byron's recent voyage of global circumnavigation in HMS Dolphin.

The lonco Calfucurá crossed the Andes from Chile to the pampas around 1830, after a call from the governor of Buenos Aires, Juan Manuel de Rosas, to fight the Boroano people.

[citation needed] George Chaworth Musters in 1869 wandered in company with a band of Tehuelches through the whole length of the country from the strait to the Manzaneros in the northwest, and collected a great deal of information about the people and their mode of life.

In the 1870s, the Conquest of the Desert was a controversial campaign by the Argentine government, executed mainly by General Julio Argentino Roca, to subdue or, some claim, to exterminate the native peoples of the south.

[80] The area's principal economic activities have been mining, whaling, livestock (notably sheep throughout) agriculture (wheat and fruit production near the Andes towards the north), and oil after its discovery near Comodoro Rivadavia in 1907.

Railways were planned to cover continental Argentine Patagonia to serve the oil, mining, agricultural, and energy industries, and a line was built connecting San Carlos de Bariloche to Buenos Aires.

Extensive valleys in the Cordilleran Range have provided sufficient grazing lands, and the low humidity and weather of the southern region make raising Merino and Corriedale sheep common.

Originally a remote backpacking destination, the region has attracted increasing numbers of upmarket visitors, cruise passengers rounding Cape Horn or visiting Antarctica, and adventure and activity holiday-makers.

Principal tourist attractions include the Perito Moreno glacier, the Valdés Peninsula, the Argentine Lake District and Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego (the city is also a jumping-off place for travel to Antarctica, bringing in still more visitors).

Oil and gas have played an important role in the rise of Neuquén-Cipolleti as Patagonia's most populous urban area, and in the growth of Comodoro Rivadavia, Punta Arenas, and Rio Grande, as well.

In the area around Bariloche, a noted Alpine cuisine tradition remains, with chocolate bars and even fondue restaurants, and tea rooms are a feature of the Welsh communities in Gaiman and Trevelin, as well as in the mountains.

Foreign investors, including Italian multinational Benetton Group, media magnate Ted Turner, British billionaire Joe Lewis[85] and the conservationist Douglas Tompkins, own major land areas.

This situation has caused several conflicts with local inhabitants and the governments of Chile and Argentina, for example, the opposition by Douglas Tompkins to the planned route for Carretera Austral in Pumalín Park.

[88] In Madeleine l'Engle's A Swiftly Tilting Planet, the fictional country Vespugia is "set in the middle of what used to be called Patagonia, a sizeable area along what are now the boundaries of Chile and Argentina".