Provinces of Argentina

Demographics

Politics

"See also List of Governors in ArgentinaThe internal products of the provinces are merged into the national product, and then the national budget is decided, including what percentage of it is given to each province. Provinces are free to choose their own utilization of the assigned percentage of the national product.

Each province has also its own government, with a governor, a senate and a deputy chamber. It is not uncommon though, for the national government to "intervene" in a province under internal instability or after a corruption scandal, designating an intervenor to replace the local government until the situation is normalized.

Many provinces have had, or still have, governments controlled by a single family. This is the case of the Rodríguez Saá in San Luis Province, [http://www.almargen.com.ar/sitio/seccion/historia/sanluis/] the Saadi family in Catamarca Province, and many others, often involved in corruption or criminal scandals that are never solved, such as the murder of María Soledad Morales in Catamarca while Ramón Saadi was its governor. [http://www.clarin.com/diario/especiales/soledad/index.html]

History

The north of Argentina was the first part of the present country to be explored by the Spanish colonisation, searching for the routes that would allow them to bring the gold and silver extracted in the Viceroyalty of Peru to the port of Buenos Aires.

Santiago del Estero, in the year 1550, was the first city founded in the territory with such ends, but lost its importance when Tucumán and Salta replaced it as mid-stops to the Atlantic coast when these two cities secured from the aboriginal attacks, and economically strengthened.

The centre of the country was also soon explored and inhabited, being the most important of the first founded cities the city of Córdoba, that became not only a political but also cultural centre with the creation of the first university, the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in 1622.

Most capital cities of the centre-northern Argentina were founded before the year 1600, except for Santa Rosa in La Pampa Province, and Resistencia in Chaco Province.

To the south of the Colorado River, the Patagonia remained under control of the aboriginals. The river itself served as natural frontier.

It was not until the infamous Roca's Conquest of the Desert, started in 1879, when the southern part of Argentina was conquered in what meant the near annihilation of the aboriginal people living in these lands.

The current political division of the provinces of Patagonia was set in 1884 and has not been changed since then, except between 1944 and 1955 when a stripe covering the southern part of Chubut Province and the northern part of Santa Cruz Province was named "Comodoro Rivadavia Military Zone".

But the "National Territories" didn't have provincial status until the 20th century. They were named provinces in 1957. The exception is Tierra del Fuego Province, which was named in 1990.

Due to the late conquest of the south of the country and the prevailing cold weather, most people live in the central or northern provinces. Recent immigration to the south, mainly from Buenos Aires Province and Buenos Aires city, is lessening this difference.

See also

* , the ISO codes for the provinces of Argentina.
* List of Argentine Provinces by Human Development Index
* List of Argentine provinces by GDP (nominal)
* List of Argentine provinces by GDP (nominal) per capita

External links

* [http://argentour.com/en/province/argentina_provinces.php Argentine provinces]
* [http://www.argentinaworld.com.ar/ Information of Argentine provinces]
* [http://www.todo-argentina.net/Geografia/provincias/index.htm "Provincias Argentinas"]
* [http://www.redargentina.com/mipais/divisionterritorial.asp Territorial Division]
* [http://www.worldstatesmen.org/Argentinaprov.html Provinces' Flags and Governors since 1983]