Hans Steffen

Hans Steffen Hoffman (20 July 1865, in Fürstenwerder, Prussia – 7 April 1936, in Davos, Switzerland) was a German geographer and explorer of the Aysén Region in western Patagonia.

In 1889, Hans Steffen, who had obtained his doctorate in 1886, was invited by José Manuel Balmaceda to Santiago, where he became a teacher of history and geography at the Instituto Pedagógico de Chile of the University of Chile (together with the Germans Alfred Beutell, Friedrich Hanssen, Friedrich Johow, Rudolf Lenz, Reinhold von Lilienthal, and Jürgen Heinrich Schneider).

He was later contracted to join the Chilean boundary commission to explore areas disputed by Argentina in what is now the Aysén Region of Chile.

Before the explorations of Steffen, Chile had made only limited hydrographic surveys along the intricate Pacific coast of Aysén.

Following the Pascua River, Steffen and his companions were the first to arrive at O'Higgins Lake from the Pacific as well the first to explore its western arms.