Patagonia is a region located at the southern end of South America, shared by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes mountains as well as the deserts, steppes and grasslands east of this southern portion of the Andes. The Colorado River is usually considered its northern boundary in Argentine territory. To the west, it includes the territory of Valdivia through Tierra del Fuego archipelago. Patagonia has two coasts; a western one towards the Pacific Ocean and an eastern one towards the Atlantic Ocean.
The name Patagonia comes from the word patagón The original word would probably be in Magellan’s native Portuguese (patagão) or the Spanish of his men (patagón). It has been interpreted later as “big foot”, but the etymology refers to a literary character in a Spanish novel of the early 16th century. It was used by Magellan in 1520 to describe the native people that his expedition thought to be giants. It is now believed that the people he called the Patagons were Tehuelches, who tended to be taller than Europeans of the time.
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