Aarón Castellanos is a municipality in the

General López Department The General López Department (in Spanish, ''Departamento General López'') is an administrative subdivision (''departamento'') of the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It is located in the south of the province. Its head town is Melincué (popula ...

Santa Fe Province The Province of Santa Fe ( es, Provincia de Santa Fe, ) is a Provinces of Argentina, province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco Province, Chaco (divided by the 28th ...

, in northeastern

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

.Ministerio del Interior
It is located 449 km from the provincial capital Santa Fe.

Foundation

Officially founded 21 February 1911. On 23 March 1903, the Argentinian aristocrat

Mercedes Castellanos de Anchorena Mercedes Castellanos de Anchorena, Marquesa de La Iglesia Católica (born María Luisa de las Mercedes Castellanos de la Iglesia; 24 September 1840 - 9 July 1920) was an Argentine aristocrat and philanthropist. She commissioned the San Martín Pa ...

ordered her representative, Angel Leanes, to found a new town at the ''Soler'' stop of the

Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway The Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway (BA&P) (in Spanish: Ferrocarril Buenos Aires al Pacífico) was one of the ''Big Four'' broad gauge, , British-owned companies that built and operated railway networks in Argentina. The original concession w ...

line. It was to be named Aarón Castellanos, in honour of the founder of Esperanza, the colony which initiated Santa Fe's colonization. A month later, on 29 April 1903, the bishop of Santa Fe approved Anchorena's plan for the foundation of a missionary convent. At the time, the

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

community had an important presence in the area, not just fulfilling their religious and spiritual duties but also acting as administrators and controllers for the materials sent by Anchorena for the convent's construction. It was later followed by a church and a hospital.

Toponymy

Named after Aarón Castellanos, considered the father of European emigration in Argentina.

Population

The municipality consisted of 309 inhabitants in 2010, representing a decline in population compared with the previous census of 2001. See chart below for population change in Aarón Castellanos between 1991 and 2010 according to the

Indec The National Institute of Statistics and Censuses ( es, link=no, Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos; INDEC) is an Argentine decentralized public body that operates within the Ministry of Economy, which exercises the direction of all of ...

National Census.

Patron Saint

Christ the Redeemer, 4 October.

References

Populated places in Santa Fe Province {{SantaFeAR-geo-stub