Map - La Rioja Province (Argentina) (La Rioja Province)

La Rioja Province  (La Rioja Province)
La Rioja is a province of Argentina located in the west of the country. The landscape of the province consist of a series of arid to semi-arid mountain ranges and agricultural valleys in between. It is in one of these valleys that the capital of the province, the city of la La Rioja, lies. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Catamarca, Córdoba, San Luis and San Juan. The dinosaur Riojasaurus is named after the province.

Petroglyphs created by early indigenous peoples at the Talampaya National Park are dated around 10,000 years BC. Succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples developed here. The Diaguita, Capayan and the Olongasta peoples inhabited the territory of present-day La Rioja Province at the time of encounter with the Spanish colonists in the 16th century.

Juan Ramírez de Velazco founded Todos Los Santos de la Nueva Rioja in 1591 under the government of Tucumán of the Viceroyalty of Peru. In 1630 the Calchaquí people revolted against the Spanish, but the governor Albornoz suppressed them.

In 1783, after the creation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, the control of the province of 10,000 inhabitants passed to the Córdoba independency. The province acquired independence from Córdoba in 1820. Following attempts by Bernardino Rivadavia, the first elected President of Argentina, to impose a centralist constitution, the caudillo Juan Facundo Quiroga emerged as a popular leader. He represented their preference for more autonomy, for which they continued to press following Quiroga's 1835 assassination. After a period of internal instability in Argentina, the province finally joined the Argentine Confederation in 1853.

La Rioja attracted fewer immigrants from Europe than did other Argentine provinces from 1890 to the 1930s.

Some Syrian and Lebanese immigrants did settle in the province, among whom the most well-known is probably the Menem family. Coming from what had been the Ottoman Empire, Saul Menem and his wife were of Armenian and Alawi ancestry. He prospered as a traveling salesman and sent his eldest son, Carlos Menem, to Spain for college. After the younger Menem was elected governor of La Rioja Province in March 1973, he implemented a number of reforms advocated by activists for the poor, rural majority, particularly those recommended by Bishop Enrique Angelelli.

Removed and imprisoned following the military ouster of President Isabel Perón in March 1976, Menem was kept in illegal confinement until the end of 1980. He was reportedly tortured during this time. The dictatorship repressed people in the province and was responsible for the brutal murder in August 1976 of Bishop Angelelli. After democracy was restored in 1983, Menem was overwhelmingly re-elected to office. He pursued conservative policies, leveraging La Rioja's dry, agreeable climate, its modest wage scale, and skilled work-force, to attract La Rioja's first significant light industries, particularly bottling and food-processing.

Having presided over a growing La Rioja economy even as the nation's languished during the 1980s, Menem secured the Peronist Justicialist Party nomination for president in May 1988; in an upset, he defeated the popular Governor Antonio Cafiero of Buenos Aires Province. Elected president of Argentina in 1988, Menem served until 1999. During those years, he steered billions in federal public works spending into La Rioja. Although the province remains less developed than the average in the nation, its economy today compares favorably with those of its neighbors.

 
Map - La Rioja Province  (La Rioja Province)
Country - Argentina
Flag of Argentina
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic (República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of 2780400 km2, making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourth-largest country in the Americas, and the eighth-largest country in the world. It shares the bulk of the Southern Cone with Chile to the west, and is also bordered by Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, Brazil to the northeast, Uruguay and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south. Argentina is a federal state subdivided into twenty-three provinces, and one autonomous city, which is the federal capital and largest city of the nation, Buenos Aires. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system. Argentina claims sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and a part of Antarctica.

The earliest recorded human presence in modern-day Argentina dates back to the Paleolithic period. The Inca Empire expanded to the northwest of the country in Pre-Columbian times. The country has its roots in Spanish colonization of the region during the 16th century. Argentina rose as the successor state of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a Spanish overseas viceroyalty founded in 1776. The declaration and fight for independence (1810–1818) was followed by an extended civil war that lasted until 1861, culminating in the country's reorganization as a federation. The country thereafter enjoyed relative peace and stability, with several waves of European immigration, mainly Italians and Spaniards, radically reshaping its cultural and demographic outlook; over 60% of the population has full or partial Italian ancestry, and Argentine culture has significant connections to Italian culture.
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Currency / Language  
ISO Currency Symbol Significant figures
ARS Argentine peso $ 2
Neighbourhood - Country  
  •  Bolivia 
  •  Brazil 
  •  Chile 
  •  Paraguay 
  •  Uruguay