Patagonica region
The Patagonia Argentina region is one of the major Argentine regions. It covers the entire south of the country and thus also areas outside the geographic region of Patagonia . Since the end of the 1990s, the provinces of Argentina, with the exception of the Province of Buenos Aires, have merged into regions with the aim of coordinating economic, infrastructure and development policies with one another and creating counterweights to the dominant position of the greater Buenos Aires area. However, these regions are so far not official member states, but pure interest groups, so they have no official political organs.
structure
The following provinces belong to the Patagonia region:
Data
The area of the Patagonia region is 930,731 square kilometers, its population is 2,025,181 (2001). The population is growing by 1.6 percent per year and the population density is 2.2 inhabitants per square kilometer.
Important cities
Because of the large extent of the region (more than a third of the country's area), each area has its own metropolises.
- In the north, these are the industrial town of Neuquén (291,041 inhabitants), the agrarian Santa Rosa de Toay (102,399 inhabitants), the tourist center of San Carlos de Bariloche (89,092 inhabitants) and the agricultural and cultural center General Roca (69,672 inhabitants).
- In the center are important cities the oil production center Comodoro Rivadavia (135,632 inhabitants), the agricultural-industrial twin town Rawson / Trelew (together 110,798 inhabitants), and the industrial and port city of Puerto Madryn (57,614 inhabitants).
- In the extremely sparsely populated south, the port cities of Río Gallegos (79,144 inhabitants), Río Grande (52,681) and Ushuaia (45,430 inhabitants) are the most important places, the latter two being centers of the electronics and media industry.
geography
The western border of the region is formed by the Andes , which are lower in this region than further north and have a humid climate. To the east of it the dry steppe of the Monte in the zone of the so-called Patagonian Meseta connects , in the valleys of this region there are some artificially irrigated oases. The climate in this region is continental, windy and dry. A separate sub-region is the relatively humid and very cool island of Tierra del Fuego in the south . The northeast of the province of La Pampa belongs to the Pampa plain.
economy
The region's economy is diverse, which is not surprising given such a large area. The main industry is oil production around Comodoro Rivadavia and Neuquén , followed by agriculture and agribusiness in the valleys of the Río Negro and Río Chubut and in the eastern province of La Pampa . The coal mining in the province of Santa Cruz , the aluminum industry in Puerto Madryn and tourism on the coast and in the Andes are also important .
tourism
The main tourist destination of the region is San Carlos de Bariloche in the southern Andes , which is known both as a summer holiday destination because of its many lakes and as a winter sports center (ski slopes at Cerro Catedral ). Further south is the Los Glaciares National Park with inland glaciers and lakes. On the Patagonian coast there are seaside resorts such as Las Grutas and Rada Tilly , but also interesting places for wildlife observation such as the Valdés peninsula . In the last few decades Tierra del Fuego has become another tourist highlight of the region, especially Ushuaia and the Tierra del Fuego National Park.