Ushuaia is the capital of Tierra del Fuego and is located on the Beagle Channel, surrounded by the Martial Glacier mountain range. It is the southernmost city in the world, with a population of nearly 80,000. Ushuaia is an administrative and light industrial port, as well as a tourist hub, being one of five internationally recognized Antarctic gateway cities. The area was first inhabited by the Selk'nam Indians, also called the Ona, and Yaghan (also known as Yámana) about 10,000 years ago. Ushuaia was founded informally by British missionaries in 1833 and was originally named by early British missionaries using the native Yámana name for the area. The name Ushuaia first appears in letters and reports of the South American Mission Society in England. Thomas Bridges was the first European to live in Ushuaia and he wrote a dictionary of the Yaghan language, the original manuscript of which is in the British Museum.
In 1873, Juan and Clara Lawrence became the first Argentine citizens to visit Ushuaia. The establishment of a penal colony in Ushuaia was promoted by Julio Argentino Roca, who later served as Argentine President twice. Gold prospectors came to Ushuaia in the 1880s, though the rumors of gold fields were false. On 12 October 1884, the South Atlantic Expedition established the sub-division of Ushuaia with Don Feliz M Paz as Governor of Tierra del Fuego. Ushuaia suffered several epidemics that much reduced the native population. By 1911 the Yámana had all practically disappeared and the population grew to 1,558 by the 1914 census.
In 1896, the prison received its first inmates, mainly re-offenders and dangerous prisoners transferred from Buenos Aires, but also some political prisoners. The two prisons merged in 1910, and that combined complex still stands today. The prison population thus became forced colonists and spent much of their time building the town with timber from the forest around the prison. They also built a railway to the settlement, now a tourist attraction known as the End of the World Train (Tren del Fin del Mundo), the southernmost railway in the world.
In 1947, President Juan Perón closed the prison by executive order in response to reports of abuse and unsafe practices. It later became a part of the Base Naval Ushuaia and was then converted into the current Museo Maritimo de Ushuaia. The naval base at Ushuaia was active during the Falklands War of 1982.