Hoste (island)

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Isla Hoste
View from the Argentine National Park Tierra del Fuego over the Beagle Channel to Isla Hoste
View from the Argentine National Park Tierra del Fuego over the Beagle Channel to Isla Hoste
Waters Pacific Ocean
Archipelago fire land
Geographical location 55 ° 15 ′  S , 69 ° 0 ′  W Coordinates: 55 ° 15 ′  S , 69 ° 0 ′  W
Hoste (island) (Tierra del Fuego)
Hoste (island)
length 139 km
width 92 km
surface 4th 117  km²
Highest elevation 1402  m
Residents 11 (2002)
<1 inh / km²
Islands south of the Beagle Channel around Cape Horn
Islands south of the Beagle Channel around Cape Horn

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

geography

Located south of Isla Grande and west of Isla Navarino , Isla Hoste in the west of the Beagle Channel represents its southern limit; the Murray Channel in turn separates the islands of Hoste and Navarino. Drake Street is in the south of the island . In the east, the Bahía Nassau separates the island from the 15 and 16 km distant archipelagos of Wollaston (Isla Grevy) and Hermite (Isla Hermite).

The southernmost point of the island is on the Hardy Peninsula and is called False Cape Horn . The highest point of the very mountainous island reaches a height of 1402 meters.

administration

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

history

The island was explored by a French scientific expedition towards the end of the 19th century . Hoste had previously been a site of unsuccessful cattle breeding projects by the Chilean government. After the failures, the island was abandoned again. Until the 20th century there lived a few Yámana families on Hoste , who were abducted by adventurers and fishermen. In 1978 the island served as a station for Chilean warships in the fleet in being during Operation Soberanía , but the island was not inhabited.

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

In his work Die Schiffwüchigen der "Jonathan" , Jules Verne describes an imaginary republic on this island.

literature

  • Jules Verne, "Die Schiffwüchigen der Jonathan", Pawlak Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin, Herrsching. ISBN 3-8224-1097-7