Caucahué is an island located in the Caucahué Channel,

Chiloé Province Chiloé Province () is one of the four provinces in the southern Chilean region of Los Lagos (X). It consists of all of Chiloé Archipelago (including Chiloé Island) with the exception of the Desertores Islands. The province spans a surface ar ...

Los Lagos Region Los Lagos Region ( , 'Region of the Lakes') is one of regions of Chile, Chile's 16 regions, which are first order administrative divisions, and comprises four provinces: Chiloé Province, Chiloé, Llanquihue Province, Llanquihue, Osorno Provin ...

(Region of the Lakes), Commune of

Quemchi Quemchi is a Chilean town and commune in Los Lagos Region, in Chiloé Province, on the eastern shore of Chiloé Island. It acquired reputation because the famous Chilean writer Francisco Coloane was born near the town. The town is served by Q ...

in southern

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

. It has a population of 354 according to the 2017 census, this is almost a halving relative to the 638 inhabitants recorded in the 2001 Chilean census. The island supplies the city of Quemchi with farm and sea products. The name Cahucahué comes from

Mapudungun Mapuche ( , ; from 'land' and 'people', meaning 'the people of the land') or Mapudungun (from 'land' and 'speak, speech', meaning 'the speech of the land'; also spelled Mapuzugun and Mapudungu) is either a language isolate or member of the s ...

(the

Mapuche The Mapuche ( , ) also known as Araucanians are a group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging e ...

language), and means “place of many seagulls”, from the words ''káwka'' or ''kawkaw'', meaning "big seagull", and ''we'', meaning place"'. Caucahue Island used to be home to the now-extinct Caucahue people. The Caucahue were one of the canoe-going peoples that lived in the southernmost regions of

. They were hunter gatherers and made good use of the sea's resources, living off sea food,

seaweed Seaweed, or macroalgae, refers to thousands of species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae. The term includes some types of ''Rhodophyta'' (red), '' Phaeophyta'' (brown) and ''Chlorophyta'' (green) macroalgae. Seaweed species such as ...

and minor

game A game is a structured type of play usually undertaken for entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or video games) or art ...

that they found on the island and its surrounding areas. Along with farming, today's inhabitants of the island still use the sea as a livelihood, and sell their seafood and farm produce at the

free market located right across the channel on

Chiloé Island Chiloé Island (, , ), also known as Greater Island of Chiloé (''Isla Grande de Chiloé''), is the largest island of the Chiloé Archipelago off the west coast of Chile, in the Pacific Ocean. The island is located in southern Chile, in the Los L ...

. The island is divided into four parts: Queler, Morro Lobos Bajo, Morro Lobos Alto and Quinterquén. It has four schools, each with one teacher: "Escuela Queler", "Escuela Caucahué", "Escuela Morro Lobos" and "Escuela Quinterquén".wikimapia datasheet
wikimapia retrieved on June 16, 2015 It is connected to the mainland via the town of

. A daily boat service runs from Quemchi to the island and private boats are also available for the 20 minute trip. Caucahue's natural vegetation is Valdivian temperate rain forest and it has a temperate climate with constant rain all year round.

References

{{Chiloe Archipelago Ecoregions of Chile Pacific islands of Chile Islands of Chiloé Archipelago