Villa Carlos Paz
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| Basic data | |||
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| location | 31 ° 25 ′ S , 64 ° 30 ′ W | ||
| Height above d. M .: | 661 m | ||
| Population (2001): | 56,407 | ||
| Agglomeration : | Villa Carlos Paz - San Antonio de Arredondo - Villa Río Icho Cruz | ||
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| administration | |||
| Province : |
 Cordoba
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| Department : | Punilla | ||
| Mayor: | Carlos Felpeto, UCR | ||
| Others | |||
| Postal code : | X5152 | ||
| Telephone code: | 03541 | ||
| Website of Villa Carlos Paz | |||
With 56,407 inhabitants (2001), Villa Carlos Paz is the fourth largest city in the province of Cordoba in central Argentina and an important tourist center .
location
Carlos Paz is located at 600 meters above sea level in the central west of the province at the mouth of the Río San Antonio in the lake San Roque Lake in Valle de Punilla , between the Sierra Grande to the west and the Sierra Chica to the east, to the Sierras de Cordoba include . The most striking elevation is the 950 meter high Cerro La Cruz immediately east of the city.
In the agglomeration of the city (including San Antonio de Arredondo, Mayu Sumaj, Icho Cruz, Cuesta Blanca and Tanti ) about 75,000 inhabitants, and the trend live rising. The entire conurbation around Lake San Roque to Cosquín has around 120,000 inhabitants.
history
Villa Carlos Paz was founded in 1914 by the large landowner Carlos Nicandro Paz, shortly after the San Roque dam was built in the vicinity, which supplies the city of Cordoba with drinking water and energy. After just a few years, Carlos Paz became a major tourist center and the population grew very quickly. Today Carlos Paz has also become the dormitory city of the provincial capital, to whose metropolitan area it belongs.
economy
Carlos Paz is best known as a tourist center, where it ranks third in national statistics behind Mar del Plata and Bariloche . About two million tourists visit the city each year. Swimming, hiking, kayaking, sailing and paragliding are available in the area. For families there are amusement parks and a chair lift to Cerro La Cruz. Another attraction is the nightlife with several theaters, casinos and discos, to which much of the Cordoba scene shifts in summer.
In summer there are various events in Carlos Paz, including concerts and festivals of all kinds. The biggest event of the year, however, is the World Rally Championship run in May or June, which attracts tens of thousands of spectators.
Ecological problems
The unconditional growth of tourism and, at the same time, the permanent resident population in the city has led to a number of ecological problems. The most serious is the water shortage: Since the city's drinking water dispenser, the Río San Antonio, carries little water in the dry winter months, its water volume is no longer sufficient to fill the reservoir satisfactorily and at the same time to meet the water needs of the constantly growing population . The result is compulsory rationing, especially in spring, and fish deaths in the lake. Furthermore, the pollution of the lake and the river has progressed so far that it is no longer possible to swim within a radius of ten kilometers from the city. In addition, there is already a lot of air pollution in the city, especially in summer.
Despite these problems generally associated with large industrial cities, the focus is still on growth, there is hardly any rethinking or at least regulation of growth. The city is even trying to incorporate large areas of land from the surrounding area in order to gain more leeway for new construction projects. This also leads to a high consumption of landscape: In the metropolitan area between Cuesta Blanca in the south and Cosquín in the north and Tanti in the west, there are hardly any noteworthy green areas over an area of 70 kilometers in length and a maximum of 15 kilometers in width, apart from the steep mountain slopes that cannot be built on.
Surroundings
20 kilometers south of Carlos Paz, near the town of Cuesta Blanca , is the Playa de los Hippies , a former refuge for politically persecuted dropouts in an isolated basin. Today it is a popular destination for camping tourists.
Web links
- Villa Carlos Paz
- IFAM Population Statistics (Spanish)
- LiveArgentina.com - City information (Spanish)