An observing site of the European Southern Observatory, founded in 1987, at an altitude of 2635 m on Cerro Paranal mountain in the Atacama desert of northern Chile, about 120 km south of Antofagasta. It is the site of the Very Large Telescope (VLT), plus the associated 2.6-m VLT Survey Telescope (VST), which came into operation in 2011, and Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA).
http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/vlt.html Official observatory website.