Chilecito
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| Basic data | |||
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| Surface: | 13,638 km 2 | ||
| location | 29 ° 10 ′ S , 67 ° 30 ′ W | ||
| Height above d. M .: | 1080 m | ||
| Population (2010): | 33,724 | ||
| Density: | 2.5 inhabitants / km² | ||
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| administration | |||
| Province : |
 La Rioja
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| Department : | Chilecito | ||
| Mayor: | Fernando Jesús Rejal | ||
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Chilecito is a city in the Argentine province of La Rioja , capital of the department of the same name and with 33,724 inhabitants (as of 2010) the second largest city in the province. The city was founded in 1715 by the Spanish colonist Domingo Castro y Bazán .
Origin of name
The name 'Chilecito' means something like 'little Chile', probably because many Chileans worked in the mine near Chilecito from an early age.
location
Chilecito lies at an altitude of 1,076 m in a wide valley between the up to 4,920 m high Sierra de Velasco in the east and the up to 6,250 m high Sierra de Famatina in the west; both mountain ranges are part of the Sierras Pampeanas . The provincial capital La Rioja is about 60 kilometers as the crow flies in a south-easterly direction (however 200 kilometers by road), about 10 km south of Chilecito is the city of Nonogasta . The RN 40 , the longest national road in Argentina, runs through Chilecito .
Others
Near Chilecito is the beginning of the 20th century (1904) by the German cable car company Adolf Bleichert & Co. built ropeway Chilecito-La Mejicana , which was the longest cableway in the world with a length of 35 km long time and also the cable car with the highest mountain station (4,600 m). The cable car was needed for ore mining in the La Mejicana mine in the Sierra de Famatina. The cable car to "Mina La Mejicana" is one of the largest technical engineering structures in the world. It was decommissioned in 1926 and is now part of the monuments and historical sites of Argentina. The system is maintained to this day for maintenance and partially used for tourist purposes, in Chilecito there is also the museum "Museo de Cable Carril" for the cable car.