Hans Steffen

Hans Steffen Hoffman (20 July 1865, in Fürstenwerder, Prussia – 7 April 1936, in Davos, Switzerland) was a German geographer and explorer of the Aysén Region in western Patagonia.

He arrived to Chile 1885 as part of a group of 180 Germans who were recruited by the Chilean government in an effort to modernize its education system. At the time of his arrival Imperial Germany held much prestige in Chile. Steffen's subsequent explorations and work about the continental divide in Patagonia was instrumental to the Chilean argument in the 1902 Arbitral award of the Andes between Argentina and Chile.

Steffen also worked as a teacher, encyclopedist and historian. Steffen Glacier on the Northern Patagonian Ice Field is named after him.

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