Santa Cruz is a province of Argentina, located in the southern part of the country, in Patagonia. It is the second largest province of the country (after Buenos Aires province), and the least densely populated in mainland Argentina. The province, mostly a cold, windswept steppe, is well known for its extensive pebble beaches as well as for the deep-water lakes and vast glaciers in the Andes foothills along its western border with Chile.