Balmaceda is a

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

an village ( es, aldea) located south east of

Coyhaique Coyhaique (), also spelled Coihaique in Patagonia, is the capital city of both the Coyhaique Province and the Aysén Region of Chile. Founded by settlers in 1929, it is a young city. Until the twentieth century, Chile showed little interest in ex ...

Aysén Region The Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region ( es, Región de Aysén, , '), often shortened to Aysén Region or Aisén,Examples of name usage1, official regional government site refers to the region as "Región de Aysén"., Chile's of ...

. Balmaceda has around 500 inhabitants, and has Aysén Region's largest airport and meteorological station,

Balmaceda Airport Balmaceda Airport is an airport next to the village of Balmaceda, serving the Aysén Region of Chile. The airport is west of the Argentina border, it is located 55 km south-east of Coyhaique, the regional capital. The Balmaceda VOR-DME (I ...

History

The first settlers arrived into the zone in early-20th century after being expelled from

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

since the borders between Chile and Argentina were drawn in 1902. In 1917 Balmaceda was officially founded and was named after the Chilean president

José Manuel Balmaceda José Manuel Emiliano Balmaceda Fernández (; July 19, 1840 – September 19, 1891) served as the 10th President of Chile from September 18, 1886, to August 29, 1891. Balmaceda was part of the Castilian-Basque aristocracy in Chile. While he wa ...

. Balmaceda was initially one of the largest inland Chilean settlements in what is now the Aysén Region.

Transport

Balmaceda is linked to Route 40, in Argentina, via a 102 km gravel extension road (not pavement - May/2019 info).

Climate

The climate of Balmaceda is an unusual combination of the dry-summer

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

characteristic more typical of

Central Chile Central Chile (''Zona central'') is one of the five natural regions into which CORFO divided continental Chile in 1950. It is home to a majority of the Chilean population and includes the three largest metropolitan areas—Santiago, Valparaís ...

with the subpolar oceanic characteristics more typical of

southern Chile Southern Chile is an informal geographic term for any place south of the capital city, Santiago, or south of Biobío River, the mouth of which is Concepción, about {{convert, 200, mi, km, sigfig=1, order=flip south of Santiago. Generally cities ...

. Uniquely to the region surrounding

Lago General Carrera General Carrera Lake (Chilean part, officially renamed in 1959) or Lake Buenos Aires (Argentine part) is a lake located in Patagonia and shared by Argentina and Chile. Both names are internationally accepted, while the autochthonous name of the l ...

, it has the extremely rare

cold-summer Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...

(

Köppen Köppen is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Bernd Köppen (born 1951), German pianist and composer * Carl Köppen (1833-1907), German military advisor in Meiji era Japan * Edlef Köppen (1893–1939), German author and ...

''Csc'', bordeline ''Dsc''), with short, though dry summers, and long, snowy though not severe winters. Precipitation, however, is markedly lower than on the coast of Chile owing to the rain shadow of the Andes, being about one-sixth to one-seventh what is received on the coast at the same latitude. Snow is very common during the winter but rarely stays on the ground.Balmaceda Airport Snow depths
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Notes

References

{{Reflist Populated places established in 1917 Populated places in Coyhaique Province