Aysen Region
Aysen (also spelled
Aisén) is
Chile's eleventh administrative region from north to south. It is the least populous of the thirteen regions. Its terrain and form are very similar to those of the
Alaska Panhandle, the northern
Norwegian coast, and New Zealand's
Milford Sound region.
Laguna San Rafael National Park, reachable only by boat or plane, is one of its most popular tourist destinations. Until the construction of Route 7 (the
Carretera Austral, or Southern Highway) in the 1980s, the only overland routes from north to south through the region were extremely primitive tracks.
The name Aysen may come from the
Huilliche word "Achen," meaning "to crumble". Another theory suggests that it was a term used by the
Chonos culture meaning "going more to the interior," in reference to the
Fjord of Aysen that stretches east from the Moraleda strait. Still anothe rtheoty states that the word comes from a corruption of the English "Ice Ends", a label used in maps to denote where the large glaciers and ice fields ended.
During the 1990s, it was suggested that the name might be derived from a
1831 map made by captain
Robert Fitz-Roy, who made an expedition to the coast onboard the
Beagle with
Charles Darwin and labeled the area around modern Aysen province with the words "Ice End." This theory, however,was largely dismissed because the name "Aysen" appears in documents of the explorer Father Garcia, who make an expedition to this region in
1766, more than 60 years prior to the arrival of the Beagle. Despite this, the Fitz-Roy myth has become popular among the many European tourists who visit Patagonia each year.
Aysen Region has ten municipalities (comunas)
*
Coyhaique*
Lago Verde*
Aysen*
Cisnes*
Guaitecas*
Cochrane*
O´Higgins*
Tortel*
Chile Chico*
Río Ibáñez*http://www.goreaysen.cl/ - official website of the region
