Sierra Grande (city)
| Basic data | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| location | 41 ° 37 ′ S , 65 ° 21 ′ W | ||
| Height above d. M .: | 249 m | ||
| Population (2001): | 6764 | ||
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| administration | |||
| Province : |
 Río Negro
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| Department : | San Antonio | ||
| Mayor: | Nelson Rubén Iribarren (UCR) | ||
| Others | |||
| Postal code : | R8532 | ||
| Telephone code: | 02934 | ||
| map | |||
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Sierra Grande is a city in the southeast of the Argentine province of Río Negro . With about 7,000 inhabitants, it is the second largest town in the Department of San Antonio and is located about 20 km west of the Golfo San Matías .
geography
Sierra Grande lies to the east of a series of isolated, low-vegetation hill chains with low altitudes (less than 300 m) in the plain Patagonia . The districts of Playas Doradas , a tourist-oriented seaside resort, and Punta Colorada , a port facility with a workers' settlement only inhabited by a few people, are located directly on the Atlantic coast. The climate is temperate in terms of temperature (January 21 ° C, July 7 ° C) and dry (200 mm rainfall per year), but also very windy.
history
Sierra Grande was founded around 1890 as a base and service center for sheep farmers and travelers in the region - the place is located directly on an important north-south route, today's Ruta Nacional 3 . The founding year is now considered to be 1903, when a court was opened there. In 1944, iron was discovered in the mountain range where the place is located. From 1969 this was extracted by the state company Hipasam , later Hiparsa , 900 houses and a port were built for the workers on the Punta Colorada peninsula , which gave the place great growth. In the mid-1990s, however, the mine was temporarily abandoned, which plunged the city into a deep depression: the population fell from 11,481 in 1991 to less than 7,000. As an alternative, attempts were made, with partial success, to market the Playas Doradas district , which lies on the Atlantic Ocean, as a seaside resort. In 2006 part of the mine and the port were reactivated.