Coihaique

is the capital city of the Aysen Region of Chile. Founded in 1929 by settlers, this is a relatively young city. Until the twentieth century, Chile never showed much interest at all in exploiting the hard-to-reach Aysén region. It was not until the second half of the twentieth century that the region's spectacular natural setting began to attract the attention of significant numbers from the outside world. The opening of the Carretera Austral in the 1980s helped put Coyhaique 'on the map'.