Llanquihue

Llanquihue, province of southern Chile. With a population of 321,493 (2007), it is the core of the Lake Region. The province was created in 1861, and until 1925, its area included what is today the Aisén region of Chile. In 1970 it became part of what is known as Chile's Lake Region, which also includes Chiloé, Osorno, Palena, and Valdivia provinces. The green landscape dotted with lakes and mountain peaks—most of them snowcapped volcanoes—attracted Chilean and European colonists during the second half of the nineteenth century. Dairy and grain-growing farms, interspersed with large cattle ranches, prospered. Labor for many of these enterprises was supplied by migrant workers from Chiloé. Today, nearly 40 percent of the population is of European ancestry, and the rest are natives from Llanquihue and Chiloé. The largest city is Puerto Montt (2000 population 138,138), which connects with the island of Chiloé via ferry, with the province of Aisén in northern Patagonia via an all-weather road, and with Bariloche (Argentina) via the Pérez Rosales Pass and Puerto Blest.

See alsoChile, Geography .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jean-Pierre Blancpain, Les allemands au Chili (1816–1945) (Cologne, 1974).

Instituto Geográfico Militar, "La región de Los Lagos," in Geografía de Chile, vol. 32 (1986).

Additional Bibliography

Schmid Anwandter, Peter. Pioneros del Llanquihue, 1852–2002: Edición conmemorativa de los 150 años de la inmigracíon alemana a Llanquihue. 2nd ed. Santiago de Chile: Liga Chileno Alemana, 2002.

Zamudio Vargas, Orlando. Chile: Historia de la división político-administrativa, 1810–2000. Santiago, Chile: Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas, 2001.

                                     CÉsar N. Caviedes