The City of the Caesars
The Ciudad de los Césares is a legendary rich city hidden somewhere in Patagonia or the southern Andes, searched for by Spanish and Chilean expeditions for more than two centuries.
1528 CE · -41.00, -71.60 · status: legend
The account
The legend is traced to Francisco César, who left Sebastián Cabot's fort of Sancti Spiritu in 1528 and came back telling of a land of riches. Later versions said the city was founded by survivors of Spanish shipwrecks or by Incas fleeing the conquest; it was invisible to outsiders and its people never died. Expeditions went out as late as the 18th century, and the myth inspired many Chilean and Argentine writers. The pin is symbolic, in the northern Patagonian Andes.
The sceptical view
No such city was ever found; the legend grew from garbled reports, shipwreck rumours and hope of a southern El Dorado.