Salta Province

Salta

Basic data
( Details )	( Details )
Capital:	Salta
Surface:  - Total  share in Argentina	Rank 6 of 24 155,488 km² 5.61%
Population :  - Total 2010  - density	Rank 8 of 24 1,214,441 inhabitants 7.8 inhabitants / km²
ISO 3166-2 code:	AR- A
politics
Region :	Región Noroeste Argentino
Structure:	23 departments
Gobernador:	Juan Manuel Urtubey
Website of the Province of Salta

Salta is a province in northwest Argentina .

The capital is the place of the same name Salta on the Río Arenales , a source of the Río Salado .

geography

The province is mountainous in the west with part of the Atacama Desert , is crossed by four parallel mountain ranges, the Cordilleras , and is flat in the east (western part of the Gran Chaco ). The headwaters and tributaries of the Río Bermejo and Río Salado irrigate the west . The valleys are fertile. In the northeast, the Río Pilcomayo , which comes from Bolivia , forms the border with Paraguay .

population

Most of the population lives in the subtropical, fertile valleys in the center of the province. Important cities besides the provincial capital Salta are the agro-industrial and agriculturally important San Ramón de la Nueva Orán (80,000 inhabitants), Tartagal (75,000 inhabitants), Rosario de Lerma (20,000 inhabitants) and Rosario de la Frontera (28,000 inhabitants), the touristically important wine-growing area Cafayate (14,000 inhabitants) and the border town to Bolivia , Professor Salvador Mazza (also Pocitos , 18,000 inhabitants).

history

Around 1400 the southern expansion of the Inca Empire reached into the area around Salta and San Miguel de Tucumán .

The Spanish conquerors first entered Salta on their way from Perú to what is now Argentina, but did not settle in Salta, but first founded the cities of Santiago del Estero and San Miguel de Tucumán . Hernando de Lerma , governor of Tucumán since November 13, 1577 , was commissioned by the Spanish crown to build a city as a stopover between Perú and the province of Tucumán for defense and supply. On April 16, 1582 he founded the city of Ciudad de Lerma (La Ciudad de Lerma en el Valle de Salta), today's provincial capital of Salta.

Administrative division

The province of Salta is divided into 23 departments, which in turn are subdivided into municipalities (Municipios). The following list gives the names of the departments (the respective capitals in brackets) and shows the area, population and density according to the last national census of 2001.

Administrative division of the Province of Salta

Department	Capital	Area (in km²)	Population (2010)
Anta	Joaquín Víctor González	21,945	057,411
Cachi	Cachi	02,925	007,315
Cafayate	Cafayate	01,570	014,850
Capital	Salta	01,722	536.113
Cerrillos	Cerrillos	00.640	035,789
Chicoana	Chicoana	00.910	020,710
General Güemes	General Güemes	02,365	047,226
General José de San Martín	Tartagal	16,257	156.910
Guachipas	Guachipas	02,785	003,187
Iruya	Iruya	03,515	005,987
La Caldera	La Caldera	00.867	007,763
La Candelaria	La Candelaria	01,525	005,704
La Poma	La Poma	04,447	001,738
La Viña	La Viña	02.152	007,435
Los Andes	San Antonio de los Cobres	25,636	006,050
Metan	San José de Metán	05,235	040,351
Molinos	Molinos	03,600	005,652
Oran	San Ramon de la Nueva Oran	11,892	138,838
Rivadavia	Rivadavia	25,951	030,357
Rosario de la Frontera	Rosario de la Frontera	05,402	028,993
Rosario de Lerma	Rosario de Lerma	05.110	038,702
San Carlos	San Carlos	05.125	007,016
Santa Victoria	Santa Victoria	03,912	010,344

economy

De la Rosa winery in Cafayate

Tourism , along with tropical agriculture and related industries , is one of the province's main sources of income. Many international and Argentinean guests visit the historic old town of the provincial capital and the Andean foothills.

tourism

One of the most famous train routes in the world begins in Salta: The Tren a las Nubes (Train into the Clouds), which leads over the Andes to the La Polvorilla bridge. Today a tourist train runs on this line from Salta up to an altitude of 4,300 meters. The Valles Calchaquíes and the 183 km long path into the wine-growing region of Cafayate are also popular tourist destinations .

Agriculture

Salta has a wide range of agricultural products. The main crops are tobacco, sugar cane, beans, soy, grapefruit and wine.

tobacco

Salta is, along with the neighboring province of Jujuy, the main producer of tobacco in Argentina. Mainly the variety "Virginia" is grown on about 14,000 to 20,000 hectares in the central departments of the province ( Capital , Cerrillos , Chicoana , General Güemes , Guachipas , La Caldera , La Candelaria , Rosario de la Frontera and Rosario de Lerma ). In 2003/2004 the production of about 870 medium and large tobacco farmers reached a volume of 46,000 tons, which corresponded to an increase of 36 percent compared to the previous year's harvest and accounted for 29 percent of the national production. Salta took the lead in tobacco production in the country ahead of Jujuy. The tobacco trade is organized in the province of Salta up to the production of cigarettes. Tobacco exports in 2004 reached $ 49 million.

sugar

The main growing areas for sugar cane are the two departments of General Güemes and Orán , which border the province of Jujuy . During the Zafra (sugar cane harvest) 2004, 226,447 tons of sugar cane were harvested on more than 20,000 hectares , which corresponds to a share of 12 percent of the national production. The sugar cane is processed in two Ingenios (sugar factories) that were bought by leading sugar industrialists in the neighboring province of Jujuy in the mid-1990s. The change of ownership led to the modernization of the sector, combined with increased investments and the expansion of the cultivation areas.

Beans

70 percent of Argentina's annual bean production originates in the province of Salta. Main cultivation areas are the central and eastern departments ( Capital , Anta , Cerrillos , General Güemes, General José de San Martín , La Candelaria , Metán , Orán and Rosario de la Frontera ). The processing of the production takes place in the province of Salta. This applies to our own production as well as to that of the neighboring provinces. The bean production is in the hands of medium-sized producers, who work between 350 and 850 hectares with more traditional technology, and the large producers who work with the latest technology, who work areas from 1000 hectares. The total acreage increased in the course of the 1990s from 125 hectares to 232 hectares in 1999, but decreased in the following years due to changes in the world market and the relocation of production to soy.

Since Argentina - almost as an exception in Latin America - has only a low level of self-consumption, bean production is flexibly adapted to the expected demand in the main exporting countries. This applies both to the expansion or restriction of the cultivation areas as well as to the change between the two main varieties “Alubia” ( white bean ) and “Poroto negro” (black bean). The main market for the black bean is Brazil, the white bean has a stable sales market in Europe. In 2004 there was a decrease in bean production, mainly due to the better profit opportunities due to the expansion of soy cultivation. The production of white beans reached 65 million tons and that of black beans 23.4 million tons. The total value of bean exports was $ 54.6 million.

soy

Soy cultivation experienced - due to the increased demand on the world market - a significant expansion, partly at the expense of other agricultural crops, such as beans. The preferred soy growing areas in the province of Salta are in the two departments of Anta and General José de San Martín . During the 2003/04 harvest, the acreage was 437,000 hectares and the yield reached 821 million tons. Salta's soybeans are either sold to the edible oil industry in Santa Fe or exported directly. The main customers are Brazil , Bolivia and Paraguay . The export value in 2004 was over $ 45 million. In 2001, with an investment of 2 million dollars, a sorting plant was put into operation, which allows to store the needs of the northwest and northeast provinces of Argentina.

Grapefruit and orange

Salta's citrus production is concentrated in the northern departments of Orán and General José de San Martín . The total acreage doubled in the 1990s from 7,500 hectares to 15,000 hectares, with around 50 percent of the cultivated area being dedicated to grapefruit, 30 percent to orange and 20 percent to other citrus fruits. Due to the constant demand from Europe, the pink grapefruit developed from a marginal product within the citrus production of the province to an export hit. Today, 20 percent of the total citrus cultivation area is reserved for pink grapefruit. The total value from exports of citrus products reached $ 11.6 million in 2004.

Wine

Wine is grown in the Valles Calchaquíes , especially in the departments of San Carlos and Cafayate . The cultivation area reaches about 2000 hectares, on which mainly the Torrontés Riojano grapes, but also Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec are grown. Great efforts have been made in the region to stabilize the quality of the wines in order to be able to market them better on the domestic and world markets. This seems to be working. Exports in 2004 were worth $ 4.7 million. See also the article Viticulture in Argentina .

Origin of name

There are several theories about the origin of the name Salta. On the one hand, Salta is the name for the beautiful place, pleasant to settle down in the Quechua language (lugar lindo, agradable para asentarse). For the locals ( Salteños ), the name Salta is synonymous with "La linda" (Spanish): Salta, la linda = "Salta, the beautiful one". For others, the term Salta is the name of the Sahta clan of the Lule Indians.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Censo 2010 Argentina resultados provisionales: mapas ". 200.51.91.231. Accessed April 22, 2014
2. ↑ INDEC : 2010 census

Web links

Commons : Salta  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Informate Salta (Spanish)
• Official tourism website of the Province of Salta (Spanish, Italian, English, French)

Coordinates: 25 ° 0 ′  S , 65 ° 0 ′  W