Gaiman, Chubut
Encyclopedia
Gaiman is a town in the Chubut Province
Chubut Province
Chubut a province in the southern part of Argentina situated between the 42nd parallel south and the 46th parallel south , the Andes range separating Argentina from Chile, and the Atlantic ocean...

 of Patagonia
Patagonia
Patagonia is a region located in Argentina and Chile, integrating the southernmost section of the Andes mountains to the southwest towards the Pacific ocean and from the east of the cordillera to the valleys it follows south through Colorado River towards Carmen de Patagones in the Atlantic Ocean...

 in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

. It has a population of about 6,000 as per the . It is located close to the River Chubut, about 15 km west of Trelew
Trelew
-References:La Pasión según Trelew, Espejo de la Argentina, 1997, Editorial Planeta Argentina S.A.I.C.; Third Edition: April 2000, Buenos Aires, ISBN 950-742-859-3-External links:* * * *...

.
Gaiman is a cultural and demographic centre of the region known in Welsh as Y Wladfa
Welsh settlement in Argentina
Y Wladfa refers to the Welsh settlement in Argentina, which began in 1865 and occurred mainly along the coast of Chubut Province in the far southern region of Patagonia...

, in which Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

-Argentinians are concentrated. The town was founded in 1874 by settlers from Wales and the Central Chubut Railway arrived in 1908 connecting it to Trelew
Trelew
-References:La Pasión según Trelew, Espejo de la Argentina, 1997, Editorial Planeta Argentina S.A.I.C.; Third Edition: April 2000, Buenos Aires, ISBN 950-742-859-3-External links:* * * *...

. Several hundred people in the region have conserved the use of the Welsh language
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...

 alongside Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

. The 'Eisteddfod de Chubut', a Welsh cultural festival, is held here every October. The town is welcoming of tourists, and Welsh teahouses (tai te) are numerous. The Museo Histórico Regional (Historical Regional Museum) commemorates local history (the signs are bilingual in Spanish and Welsh). There are a number of Welsh Protestant chapels, of which the largest is Capel Bethel.

10 km (6 mi) to the south of Gaiman is Bryn Gwyn, where a large number of fossils can be seen.

The town's name originates in an indigenous Tehuelche place-name meaning "rocky point."
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