© 2018, Mathematical Sciences Publishers. All Rights reserved. We give a geometric interpretation of the maximal Satake compactification of symmetric spaces X=G/K of noncompact type, showing that it arises by attaching the horofunction boundary for a suitable G-invariant Finsler metric on X. As an application, we establish the existence of natural bordifications, as orbifolds-with-corners, of locally symmetric spaces X/Γ for arbitrary discrete subgroups Γ
