Port Stanley is the only town of its archipelago and its sole urban, customs and air entry point: a small coastal settlement whose name is disputed by nationalists who want it called Puerto Rivero.
| Type | Place |
| Population | 2,000–3,000 (accounts differ) |
| Spanish entry | Puerto Stanley |
Description
There is no airport: planes land on the racecourse, borrowed while no races run, a kilometer from town. The port is “rather more sheds”, with no buildings or control tower. Low houses and shops spread along the coast, among them a clothing shop and a greengrocer. There are one or two churches: the Catholic one, “the most colorful”, and the Anglican one, “more of a stone building”. A lighthouse was deliberately built taller than others, “for a reason” not given.
In the square stands a monument of whale bones consecrated in 1934, with at its center a cockade “that could be from 1810”. Another record places a monument with a cockade at the landing site.
The two-story pub is the center of social life: the bar on the ground floor, prisoners lodged on the upper floor. Drinking stops at ten. The fire always burns, but there is no wood: only peat or coal is burned. At night come “the blackness and the cold”, the first whistles of the wind, and the water begins to freeze.
Nationalists want the town named Puerto Rivero, after Rivero; others do not.
Continental network
Across the sea lie Puerto Gallegos, a flight destination; the Puerto Madryn area, “with many whales, many studies”; and the free zone of the Port of Buenos Aires, where “many things are held, things that are not registered”. Impounded weapons come out of that depot, and the Ministry of Finance, General Administration of Customs and Port of the Nation has staff who can be contacted.
Conflicting accounts
- Population is given as “at most 2,000”, “two thousand, three thousand”, and “a place of 3,000 people”.
Open questions
- Whether the square monument and the landing-site monument are one or two is unknown.
- Who governs (police, governor, garrison) and who jails prisoners in the pub is unknown; so are currency and prices.
- How the archipelago is normally reached, and whether there is regular sea service, is unknown.
- The exact position of the square, pub and lighthouse relative to the port and the track is not recorded.