Antofagasta, Chile

Antofagasta, Chile: Submarine Cable Landing Point

Antofagasta is a port city on the northern Pacific coast of Chile, situated approximately 1,100 kilometres north of Santiago. As the capital of both Antofagasta Province and Antofagasta Region, it is one of Chile's most significant urban centres, with a population of over 400,000 as of 2024. Its position along Chile's northern coastline places it within a stretch of the South American Pacific seaboard that is increasingly served by submarine cable infrastructure.

One submarine cable lands at Antofagasta: the Prat cable. This system connects multiple points along the Chilean coast, positioning Antofagasta as a node within a domestic coastal corridor rather than an intercontinental gateway. The Prat cable represents Chile's effort to extend submarine connectivity to cities along its extended Pacific littoral.

Cables Landing at Antofagasta, Chile

Prat is a 3,500-kilometre submarine cable with a ready-for-service year of 2020, currently listed at draft status. The cable connects landing points exclusively within Chile, forming a domestic intra-national submarine link along the country's coastline. Antofagasta serves as one of the Chilean endpoints on this system, which spans a considerable distance along Chile's elongated Pacific shore.

Regional Context

Within Chile's submarine cable landscape, which comprises nine cables across nineteen landing points, Antofagasta sits among a group of single-cable landing points that includes Caldera, Cartagena, and Constitución. The most connected landing point in the country is Valparaíso with six cables, followed by Arica with three and Puerto Montt with two. Antofagasta's single-cable status places it in the lower tier of Chilean landing points by cable count, though its position as a major northern city gives it geographic significance within Chile's coastal cable network.

Network Role

Antofagasta functions as a single-cable terminus on the Prat domestic cable system, enabling submarine-based connectivity along Chile's Pacific coast rather than providing links to foreign cable networks. Its role is that of a regional node, integrating one of Chile's most populous northern cities into a domestic submarine corridor that runs the length of the country's coastline.

Within the broader Chilean submarine cable graph, Antofagasta's connection via the Prat cable ensures that the northern Pacific coast maintains a submarine-based link to other Chilean landing points, complementing the more internationally connected hubs further south. Its presence as a landing point reflects the extension of Chile's domestic submarine cable network into the country's northern regions.