Llanquihue Lake

The Lake Llanquihue (Spanish Lake Llanquihue ) is 877 km ², the second largest lake in Chile (for comparison, the area of Lake Constance 536 km ²).

It is located in the Region X ( Región de los Lagos) near Puerto Montt. On the south shore of the lake, the town of Puerto Varas, in the west the town of Frutillar and in the north the city of Puerto Octay is. The lake is fed from the Andes. Around the lake live very many ethnic German immigrants.

The visit to the beaches on the lake and around the lake by car are popular tourist activities. From the situated at an altitude of 70 m above sea level lake offers a magnificent view of the volcano Osorno with its 2652 m high peaks and volcano Calbuco. Due to the abundance of fish, the area is a hidden treasure for fishing.

Formation

The lake was formed about 40,000 years ago at the end of the last glacial period, called the Llanquihue - glacial ( cold period ). At this time, the Moraine closed on the west side of the lake completely to a barrier together, so that a further flow of water was prevented. Today, the Rio Maullin forms the only natural drainage of the huge lake.

History

Pedro de Valdivia in 1552 discovered the lake. 1558 reached the writer Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga and the Governor of Chile García Hurtado de Mendoza, the lake shore again.

The first immigrants arrived in 1853 at the lake. Earlier, the German Bernhard Eunom Philippi (1811-1852) had explored the area around the lake in 1842.

The Chilean government invited other German immigrants to a settlement of this area. After the March Revolution had failed in Germany in 1848, several thousand German came to the area. They formed in 1853 in Puerto Montt and settled in the cities of Llanquihue, Frutillar and Puerto Varas, El Maiten and Puerto Octay. Between 1856 and 1860, 54 Protestant religious refugees from the Zillertal, the Zillertal Inklinanten settled at the Lago Llanquihue.

The cities of today are still dominated German with many German buildings of the 19th century and numerous cultural events.

Salmon

Meanwhile, Chile has overtaken Norway as the world's largest exporter of farmed salmon. However, to date, the majority of frequently industrially operated salmon farms. Around the lakes in the south of the country in the hands of Norwegian or Japanese agribusinesses The Fundación Chile began in the 1970s, use of modern technologies for salmon farming in Chile. In the early 1980s the company took Salmones Antártica on Llanquihue Lake, the first major salmon farming operation in what many imitators followed in the lakes in the Región de los Lagos. The company was later sold to the Japanese company Nippon Suisan.

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