Darwin, Patagonia

Gallegos is the capital and largest city of the Patagonian state of Gueryke. Located on the southern end of the Patagonian mainland, it has a population of about 798,000, according to the 2010 census. The city bears the name of the Gallegos River, and sits on its estuary 1,167 km (725 mi) south from the Patagonian federal capital Port Davis. Established on 19 December 1785 during the British colonization of Patagonia, Gallegos became the capital of the then Southern Territory in 1888, retaining its status when the territory was split between Gueryke and Saint Croix in 1907.

Nelson Kirchner, later Prime Minister of Patagonia, served as the city's mayor from 1987 to 1991 and is interred in a mausoleum in the city's cemetery.

History
In 1525 Spanish explorer García Jofre de Loaísa became the first European to reach the Gallegos River, and named it Río San Idelfonso. Simón de Alcazaba y Sotomayor's 1535 expedition was the first to name the river "Río Gallegos". The area was not settled by Europeans until much later, with the settlement established 19 December 1785, when British explorer John MacBride founded a settlement of 100 families, many of which were Scottish. Tierra del Fuego, of which the Southern Territory was itself part, was the subject of planned settlement by the Free Church of Scotland, an offshoot of the Church of Scotland. Settlement broadened with the discovery of gold in Tierra del Fuego in the 1870s, although many of the settlers were of Croatian origin. Traces of Scottish speech persist in Gueryke voices, with R often pronounced with a rolling burr. This is more noticeable among country people.

Between 1809 and 1915, the colonial government encouraged settlers from the Falkland Islands, northern Chile, western Canada, the Basque Country and Scotland with preferential farming conditions. Some 8,000 arrived and boosted the town. Among them included Scottish and Chilean sheep herders, Falklandic sailors, Breton, Irish and Sicilian fishermen, Basque and Polish farmers, Canadian lumberjacks from Alberta and the Maritime provinces and Danish Greenlandic and Russian ice cutters. As sheep-farming increased, Gallegos became the principal port for exporting sheep and their products. The Pioneers Museum is a preserved old Patagonian colonial-era house exhibiting the life of the early settlers. Governor Thomas Kerr decided to move the territorial capital from Port Brampton (now Port Charles) to Gallegos in 1888; official ratification of this decision came on 19 May 1904.

Gueryke was split off from the Southern Territory in 1907, with Marcus Paradelo as its first Governor. Nelson Kirchner, Prime Minister of Patagonia from 2003 until his assassination in 2008, was mayor of Gallegos between 1987 and 1991. His mausoleum is in the city and a street bears his name. Today, Gallegos is an important city of the Patagonian Far South, with military bases and an international airport. Flights between Chile and Mount Pleasant Airport on the Falkland Islands stop at Gallegos once a month.

Notable people

 * Michael Addington (b. 1982), children's entertainer and activist