Tortel

Demographics

Administration

Landmarks and main features

• Caleta Tortel is a lumber town with an intricate walkway system built by the town’s inhabitants which run several kilometres around the cove. Without these walkways, the only way to communicate and travel between houses would be by boat, given the density of the vegetation and the steepness of the hills around the cove. The walkway system has become part of the town’s culture and a local tourist attraction.
• Laguna San Rafael National Park is a park located on the Pacific coast of southern Chile. The park is named for the San Rafael Lagoon formed by the retreat of the San Rafael Glacier. Created in 1959, it covers an area of and includes the Northern Patagonian Ice Field. A fjord of more than in length is one of the park's principal attractions.
• The Southern Patagonian Ice Field, located in the Southern Patagonian Andes between Argentina and Chile, is the world's second largest contiguous extrapolar ice field. It is the bigger of two remnant parts of the Patagonian Ice Sheet, which covered all of southern Chile during the last glacial period, locally called the Llanquihue glaciation.
• Katalalixar National Reserve is a natural reserve located in an archipelago between the Southern Patagonian Ice Field and the Northern Patagonian Ice Field in the Aysén Region of Chile. The reserve was created in 1983 and has no infrastructure. It covers an area of within the Magellanic subpolar forests ecoregion and exhibits more biodiversity than other areas of southern Chile. This may appear contradictory, as the area is supposed to have been covered by the Patagonian Ice Sheet during the last glacial maximum.
• Bernardo O'Higgins National Park is the largest of the protected areas in Chile, covering an area of in both the Aysén and Magallanes and Antártica Chilena regions. Management of this and other national parks in Chile is entrusted to the Corporación Nacional Forestal. The park is named after General Bernardo O'Higgins, the first head of state of the Republic of Chile. Los Glaciares National Park and Torres del Paine National Park are its neighbours to the east, Laguna San Rafael National Park is located to the north, the Alacalufes National Reserve to the southwest and the Katalalixar National Reserve to the northwest.