Hoste Island

Hoste (Spanish Isla Hoste ) is one of the southernmost islands of Chile, and with an area of ​​4117 km ² to Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, the second largest island of Tierra del Fuego archipelago and the fifth largest island in Chile.

Geography

South of the Isla Grande and west of Isla Navarino located, the Isla Hoste in the west of the Beagle Channel is the southern limit; the Murray Channel in turn separates the islands of Hoste and Navarino. In the south of the island lies the Drake Passage. In the East Bahía Nassau separates the island from the 15 or 16 km away archipelagos Wollaston (Isla Grevy ) and Hermite (Isla Hermite ).

The southernmost point of the island can be found on the Hardy Peninsula and has the name wrong Cape Horn. The highest point in the very mountainous island reaches a height of 1402 meters.

Management

The island belongs administratively to the municipality of Cape Horn, which is part of the Magallanes y Antártica Chilena de la Antártica Chilena Province counted. The western part Hostes is part of the National Park " Alberto de Agostini ".

History

The island was explored in the late 19th century by a French scientific expedition. Even before Hoste was a place of unsuccessful livestock projects by the Chilean government, after which the island was abandoned. Until the 20th century lived on Hoste Yámana some families who were carried off by adventurers and fishermen. In 1978 the island served during Operation Soberanía Chilean warships in the fleet in being as Station except that the island had been inhabited.

Research by Jorge Milla from the last years of the 20th century demonstrate the fragility and debility of the vegetation cover in the western part Hostes. The east of the island is still largely unexplored. On the Isla Hoste, the southernmost trees on earth find ( Nothofagus antarctica).

In his work The Shipwrecked Members of Jonathan Jules Verne describes an imaginary republic on the island.