San Juan (Argentina)

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San Juan
Basic data
Surface: 30 km 2
location 31 ° 30 ′  S , 68 ° 30 ′  W Coordinates: 31 ° 30 ′  S , 68 ° 30 ′  W
Height above d. M .: 604  m
Population (2010): 109.123
Density: 3637 inhabitants / km²
Agglomeration : Gran San Juan
  (Argentina)
 
 
administration
Province : San JuanSan Juan San Juan
Department : Capital
Mayor: Marcelo Jorge Lima, Frente para la Victoria
Others
Postal code : J5400
Telephone code: 0264
San Juan website

San Juan is a city in western Argentina , located in an oasis in a dry steppe-like area. It is the capital of the province of San Juan . The actual urban area has 109,123 inhabitants (2010, INDEC ), but the development continues in the neighboring departments of Chimbas , Rivadavia , Rawson , Pocito and Santa Lucia , so that the metropolitan area has around 550,000 inhabitants.

geography

Climate diagram San Juan
San Juan Cathedral
San Juan City Hall

San Juan is located at 604 meters above sea level in the southern great oasis of the province, resulting from the valleys of Tullum, Ullum and Zonda east of to precordillera belonging Sierra del Tontal composed.

The Río San Juan flows around the city in the northeast. The surrounding area is steppe-like and consists largely of Monte bush forest, but also of rocky deserts. The climate is dry and subtropical with very high daytime temperatures in summer, in winter the foehn- like Zonda wind often briefly increases temperatures to summery levels.

history

San Juan is one of the oldest cities in Argentina. It was founded in 1561 or 1562 by Juan Jufré in a neighboring valley. In 1594 the city was moved to its current location due to flooding. During the colonial period, San Juan was part of Chile for a while , but with independence it finally fell to Argentina.

In 1826, the Roman Catholic Apostolic Vicariate of San Juan de Cuyo was established, which was elevated to a diocese in 1834 and an archdiocese of San Juan de Cuyo in 1934 .

At the end of the 19th century, the city had a cathedral, mining school, botanical garden, and 15,000 residents who exported cattle and dried fruit to Chile and traded in wine and brandy. The city was the seat of a German consul.

In 1944 an earthquake devastated the city, killing 10,000 people. The reconstruction was shaped by the spirit of the avant-garde architecture of the time - a project by Le Corbusier was rejected, however - and so you can find a large number of modern buildings in the city today.

Architecture and culture

Only a few buildings, including the Dr. Guillermo Rawson and Santo Domingo Convent survived the 1944 earthquake. The 1979 cathedral is a good example of the modern architecture that characterizes the city. The natural science museum houses fossils of prehistoric animals, many of them from the Ischigualasto National Park . The wine museum in an old railroad shed houses historical machines from the region's wineries.

economy

Despite a law that has encouraged the settlement of industrial companies since the 1970s, the city is largely dependent on the agricultural area around the oasis of Tulum. The leading industry is viticulture, which covers 65 percent of the oasis' agricultural area, and the related processing industry. The Ullum reservoir , located in the vicinity of San Juan, is of importance in the energy industry .

Town twinning

Sister cities of San Juan are

  • Vicuña , Chile, mutual cooperation agreement since August 3, 2003
  • Nerja in Andalusia , Spain, since July 25, 1997

sons and daughters of the town

Web links

Commons : San Juan  - collection of images, videos, and audio files

proof

  1. ↑ Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores ( Memento of May 27, 2012 in the Internet Archive )