Santa Inés Island () is an

island An island (or isle) is an isolated piece of habitat that is surrounded by a dramatically different habitat, such as water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island ...

in southern

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 ...

, part of the

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla ...

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Arc ...

and of

Punta Arenas Punta Arenas (; historically Sandy Point in English) is the capital city of Chile's southernmost region, Magallanes and Antarctica Chilena. The city was officially renamed as Magallanes in 1927, but in 1938 it was changed back to "Punta Are ...

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

, lying south west of the Brunswick Peninsula, from which is separated by the Strait of Magellan and minor islands. It is the largest island of Punta Arenas municipality and the third largest of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, after Isla Grande and

Hoste Island Hoste Island () is one of the southernmost islands in Chile, lying south, across the Beagle Channel, from Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego and west of Navarino Island, from which it is separated by the Murray Channel. Hoste Island has the souther ...

. Its shoreline in this area is part of the Francisco Coloane Coastal and Marine Protected Area. The rest of the island is a part of the Alacalufes National Reserve, equalling that

Desolación Island Desolación Island () (Spanish for ''Desolation'') is an island at the western end of the Strait of Magellan in the Magallanes y la Antártica Chilena Region, Chile. Its northwestern point is called ''Cabo Pilar'' (Cape Pillar), and marks the e ...

and the ''Córdova Peninsula''. This latter is located in front of the island on the other side of the Strait of Magellan and is a peninsula of

Riesco Island Riesco Island () lies at west of the Brunswick Peninsula, Chile. It is one of the largest islands in Chile, with an area of . Its highest point is Mount Atalaya at . The island is bordered by two large piedmont embayments: Otway Sound and Skyring ...

. The island belongs to the

archipelago. The island hosts a small ice field named Grandes Ventisqueros. It has a deeply indented coastline with several

fjord In physical geography, a fjord or fiord () is a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Alaska, Antarctica, British Columbia, Chile, Denmark, Förden and East Jutland Fjorde, Germany, ...

s, one of which hid the German light cruiser

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

following the

battle of the Falkland Islands The Battle of the Falkland Islands was a First World War naval action between the British Royal Navy and Imperial German Navy on 8 December 1914 in the South Atlantic. The British, after their defeat at the Battle of Coronel on 1 November, s ...

in December 1914. First explorer of Santa Inés Island inland was the French writer and mountaineer Marc Augier in 1951, as he related in his work ''Monts Pacifique''.

References

External links

https://web.archive.org/web/20070102030111/http://www.whalesound.com/marine.htm
Islands of Tierra del Fuego {{MagellanAntarctic-geo-stub