Punta Galera is a headland in the western coast of South America located in Los Ríos Region, Chile. The headland projects into the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

at the

40th parallel south The 40th parallel south is a circle of latitude that is 40 degrees south of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, Australasia, the Pacific Ocean and South America. Its long oceanic stretches are the nor ...

just north of

Colún Beach Colún is a beach in southern Chile located south of Corral and west of La Unión. The beach is about 9 km long and runs like many other Chilean beaches from north to south along the Pacific Oceans shores. In a ranking made the newspaper El ...

and south of

Caleta Chaihuín Caleta Chaihuín (Chaihuín) is a coastal hamlet ( es, caserío) and rural district in the commune of Corral, Los Ríos Region, Chile. It lies at the mouth of Chaihuín River that flows from the Valdivian Coast Range to the Pacific Ocean. Silt fr ...

. Punta Galera should not be confused with Falsa Punta Galera a minor headland located a few kilometers northeast of it. Punta Galera is the site of a

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mar ...

since 1875. The headland was noticed in the expedition of

Juan Bautista Pastene 200px, Map showing the September 1544 expedition led by Pastene. Giovanni Battista Pastene (1507–1580) was a Genoese maritime explorer who, while in the service of the Spanish crown, explored the coasts of Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru ...

in 1544, but the Spanish name of Punta Galera was given by the explorer

Juan Ladrillero Juan Ladrillero (b. c. 1490 in Moguer – 1559) was a 16th-century Spanish navigator and explorer who from 1557 to 1559 explored the coast of Chile from Valdivia (39° 48’ S) to the Barbara Channel (54° S, between Clarence Island and Santa ...

in 1557 who thought it resembled the ram of a galley ( es, galera). Local

Mapuche The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who sha ...

called the headland ''vuchuchén'', meaning "place of travellers". ''Diccionario Geográfico de la República de Chile'' mentions Punta Galera as the site of the wreckage of ''San José'' in 1651.

References

Geography of Los Ríos Region Galera Coasts of Los Ríos Region Cliffs of Chile {{LosRíos-geo-stub

See also

References