Los Antiguos is a town in Santa Cruz Province

Santa Cruz Province (Argentina)

Santa Cruz is a province of Argentina, located in the southern part of the country, in Patagonia. It borders Chubut province to the north, and Chile to the west and south. To the east is the Atlantic Ocean...

, Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, located on the south shore of Lago Buenos Aires. It lies 2 km from the border with Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

, and 8 km from the Chilean town of Chile Chico

Chile Chico

Chile Chico is a town in General Carrera Province, Aisén Region, Patagonia, Chile. It is located on the south shore of General Carrera Lake...

. It is connected to Perito Moreno

Perito Moreno, Santa Cruz

Perito Moreno is a town in the northeast of Santa Cruz Province, Argentina, 25 km east of Lake Buenos Aires. It should not be confused with the Perito Moreno National Park over 300 km south by road, or the Perito Moreno Glacier near El Calafate. The town is the capital of the Lago Buenos Aires...

 and Caleta Olivia

Caleta Olivia

Caleta Olivia is a city located at the northeast of the Argentine province of Santa Cruz, on the San Jorge Gulf by the Atlantic Ocean. It has a population of 36,000 inhabitants...

 on the Atlantic coast by a paved road.

The town is an agricultural oasis, where small farms produce fruit crops. It was founded as the Leandro Alem

Leandro Alem

Leandro Nicéforo Alem was an Argentine politician, born in Buenos Aires, a founder and leader of the Radical Civic Union. Alem was the uncle and political teacher of Hipólito Yrigoyen. His father, was the chief of Rosas' political police, the Mazorca. He was executed after the battle of Caseros...

 Agricultural Colony in 1921, and was formally designated as a municipality in 1970. The area was covered by dust from the 1991 eruption of Mount Hudson

Mount Hudson

Mount Hudson is a stratovolcano in southern Chile, and the site of one of the largest eruptions in the twentieth century. The mountain itself is covered by a glacier. There is a caldera at the summit from an ancient eruption; modern volcanic activity comes from inside the caldera...

, but it has since recovered.

The name of Los Antiguos is a translation of the Tehuelche

Tehuelche language

Tehuelche is a nearly extinct Chon language spoken by four people in Patagonia out of an ethnic group of 200. They were originally nomadic hunters from Chile. It is also known as Aonikenk or Aonek'o 'ajen...

name, I-Keu-khon, meaning "Place of the Elders."

In the 2001 census the town had a population of 2,047.

External links

• Los Antiguos website (in Spanish)
• Lonely Planet