Punta Arenas ("Sandy Point") is a deceptively unassuming name for the largest city at the edge of the world. Guarding the strategic Strait of Magellan, Punta Arenas is one of the southernmost cities on Earth, and it is therefore vital in terms of power projection across the Strait of Magellan.

Punta Arenas' strategic location was not lost on European powers of the Victorian Age, and despite Chilean claims on the region, both the British and French sent a series of expeditions to the region attempting to gain control. President Manuel Bulnes of Chile, attempting to reassert Chilean claims, established Fort Bulnes in 1843. The Chileans arrived a single day before the French, who themselves were narrowly ahead of the British. Had they arrived any later, the city may have been named Sandy Point or Point de Sable instead of Punta Arenas.

Fort Bulnes, over time, outgrew the rocky outcropping on which it was established, and in 1848, it was reestablished on the banks of the nearby river Las Minas as the part-penal colony, part-civilian settlement Punta Arenas. The city's location on the undisputed center of Atlantic-Pacific trade as well as the discovery of gold contributed to the city's massive growth in the late 1800s, and while the opening of the Panama Canal caused the city to fall from its mercantile apoapsis and stagnate, it is still a city of key strategic and cultural importance. The motto of the city, "Labor Omnia Vincit