| Santa Cruz is a province of Argentina, located in the southern part of the country, in Patagonia. It borders Chubut province to the north, and Chile to the west and south. To the east is the Atlantic Ocean.
To the west, the Andes at these latitudes are lower than at the centre and north of Argentina, but still have yearly snow peaks. There is the immense ice sheet that feeds the numerous glaciers.
From the centre to the Atlantic coast on the east, plateaus of descending height dominate the landscape. The beaches of the Atlantic coast are a mixture of long beaches with cliffs. In Gran Bajo de San Julián, the Laguna del Carbón is 105 meters below the sea level, and is the lowest point in the Western and Southern Hemispheres.
The average temperatures are 13°C during the summer, and 3° in winter with temperatures of down to -25°. Even though precipitations on the ice-sheet area at the west are common, rain is scarce in the entire province, with an average of 200 mm per year. Strong winds blow all year around.
The cold weather-arid steppe is crossed by a few rivers that produce fertile valleys; Deseado River, Santa Cruz River, Gallegos River, Coyle River, Chico River and Pinturas River.
The lakes of Buenos Aires Lake (2,240 km², 881 km² in Argentina), Cardiel Lake (460 km²), Viedma Lake (1082 km²), Argentino Lake (1560 km²), Pueyrredón Lake, Belgrano Lake and San Martín Lake (1.013 km²) are all on the west, product of thaw of the glaciers, but due to the low temperatures, their shores are not used for agriculture.
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