Chañaral Airport — Chañaral, Chile

Wedged between the Pacific coastline and the driest reaches of Chile's Atacama Desert, CNR provides air access to a small mining and fishing port whose fortunes have long tracked the copper industry centered on the nearby El Salvador and Potrerillos operations run by state mining company Codelco. Scheduled passenger service has historically been sparse or nonexistent, leaving the airfield to handle general aviation, mining-company charters, and occasional emergency flights for a town whose isolation is softened only by the Pan-American Highway running along the coast. Just south of Chañaral lies Pan de Azúcar National Park, an improbable pocket of biodiversity where Humboldt penguins and desert-adapted cacti persist despite some of the lowest rainfall totals recorded anywhere on the planet. The airport's runway sits on flat coastal desert terrain typical of the region.