Isla de los Estados

Isla de los Estados, also known in English as Staten Island, is an Argentine island that lies 29 kilometres (18 mi; 16 nmi) off the eastern extremity of Tierra del Fuego, from which it is separated by the Le Maire Strait. The island is part of the Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego, and of the department and city of Ushuaia. It has been declared an "Ecological, Historic, and Tourist Provincial Reserve" ("Reserva provincial ecológica, histórica y turística"), with access limited to tours from Ushuaia.

The island was named after the Netherlands States-General, the Dutch parliament (English: Staten Island, from the Dutch Stateneiland; Chuainisin in the Yamana language, meaning "land of abundance"; Jaiwesen in the Haush language, meaning "region of cold"; and Kéoin-harri in the Selkʼnam language, meaning "mountain range of the roots")

Prior to European arrival, the island was visited by the Yamana people, who inhabited the islands south of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego.

The first Europeans to encounter the island were the Spanish naval captain Francisco de Hoces and his crew in 1526. His ship, the San Lesmes, was part of the Spanish Loaísa expedition to the Pacific Ocean. The ship found the island after it had become separated from the rest of the fleet in a storm.

Almost a century after the Spaniards, the Dutch explorers Jacob le Maire and Willem Schouten passed the island on 25 December 1615, naming it Staten Landt. Le Maire and Schouten sailed their ship, Eendracht, through a route south of the Straits of Magellan, a route now called the Le Maire Strait. To his left Le Maire noted the land mass which he called Staten Landt; he theorized it was perhaps a portion of the great 'Southern Continent.' (The first European name for New Zealand was Staten Landt, the name given to it by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who in 1642 became the first European to see the islands. Tasman also assumed it was part of the 'Southern Continent' later known as Antarctica.)

The Dutch expedition to Valdivia of 1643 intended to sail through Le Maire Strait but strong winds made it instead drift south and east. The small fleet led by Hendrik Brouwer managed to enter the Pacific Ocean sailing south of the island disproving earlier beliefs that it was part of Terra Australis.

On New Year's Day, 1775, Captain James Cook named what is now "Puerto Año Nuevo", "New Year's Port". Seal hunters established a short-lived factory there (1786–1787), but abandoned it after the Duke of York wrecked there on 11 September 1787 while bringing supplies.^{[contradictory]}

The island is also referenced in Richard Henry Dana Jr.'s book Two Years Before the Mast. The crew of the Alert sighted Staten Land on July 22, 1836. Despite Dana's joy at encountering the first land since leaving San Diego more than two months earlier, he writes "...a more desolate-looking spot I never wish to set eyes upon;—–bare, broken, and girt with rocks and ice, with here and there, between rocks and broken hillocks, a little stunted vegetation of shrubs."