Puyehue, Cordón del Caulle, and Cordillera Nevada form a northwest trending massif in the Ranco Province of the Andes. The three volcanoes are coalesced. Puyehue is located in the southeast, Cordón Caulle in the center, and Cordillera Nevada, which owes its name to its often snowy appearance from the relatively densely populated Chilean Central Valley, is at the northwestern end. The massif is located between two lakes, Ranco Lake in the north and Puyehue Lake in the south. The fact that Puyehue volcano is named after Puyehue Lake reflects that it is better seen and more accessible from the south. Cordillera Nevada is a wide semicircular caldera and corresponds to the remnants of a collapsed volcano. Cordillera Nevada covers an area of . Cordón Caulle is a northwest trending ridge that hosts a volcanic-tectonic graben in which a fissure vent is developed. Puyehue Volcano is a stratovolcano located on the southeastern end of Cordón Caulle, just east of the main fault of the Liquiñe-Ofqui Fault Zone. Its cone hosts a 2.4 km (1.5 mi) wide crater, and products of Puyehue volcanism cover an approximate area of .