Caucete is a department in the eastern part of the San Juan Province of

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 ...

, which is predominantly a landscape of mountains, and many plantations. It contains the popular Shrine of the Difunta Correa.

Etymology

The name is derived from the Tehuelche word "caucete", meaning "land or land where he dwells".

History

When the Spanish arrived, the area of Caucete, was occupied by the

Huarpes The Huarpes or Warpes are an indigenous people of Argentina, living in the Cuyo region. Some scholars assume that in the Huarpe language, this word means "sandy ground," but according to ''Arte y Vocabulario de la lengua general del Reino de Chi ...

, in a settlement in the vicinity of Pie de Palo. Nearly three centuries later (in 1822), to establish a colony with American population, Amman Rawson asked the government for these lands, which were awarded in 1824. Rawson, the father of

William Rawson William Stepney Rawson (14 October 1854 – 4 November 1932) was an amateur footballer who played at full-back in the 1870s, and was also an FA Cup Final referee in 1876. Born in South Africa, he played for the England national team. Early li ...

, chaired the Founding Society of Caucete, which divided the land into 25 blocks and each of them into two parts, through a ditch central allowed to hold irrigation in the plot. The colony began to be populated, but with the people in the area, not American immigration. Subsequently, Benavides, through the Regulation Irrigation 1851,) divided the province into nine sections, one of which was Caucete. Through its Departmental Commission and with the support of the neighborhood, the new section proposed a project for the foundation of a villa. Thus was born Villa Independence, by the decree of November 15, 1851.

Geography

The department Caucete is located in the southeast of the San Juan Province, 28 kilometers east of

San Juan San Juan, Spanish for Saint John, may refer to: Places Argentina * San Juan Province, Argentina * San Juan, Argentina, the capital of that province * San Juan, Salta, a village in Iruya, Salta Province * San Juan (Buenos Aires Underground), ...

. It is 7,502 km ² in area. The village head is Caucete. Its boundaries are: * To the north, the department Jáchal * To the south, the 25 de Mayo and

San Luis Province San Luis () is a province of Argentina located near the geographical center of the country (on the 32° South parallel). Neighboring provinces are, from the north clockwise, La Rioja, Córdoba, La Pampa, Mendoza and San Juan. History The ci ...

* To the east, the Valle Fértil and La Rioja province * To the west, the 9 de Julio, San Martin Department, San Juan San Martin and Angaco departments

Ecology

The department can be divided into four distinct sections: one that corresponds to Valley Tulum, the area of the Depression of the Crossing ( Crossing of Ampacama), bed

Bermejo River The Bermejo River (Spanish, Río Bermejo) is a river in South America that flows from Bolivia to the Paraguay River in Argentina. The river is generally called Bermejo in spite of its different names along its way, but it also has its own Native ...

The mountainous area of the structure corresponding to the formation Sierras Pampeanas (Cerro Pie de Palo) and the area of Under Great Eastern. The vegetation is a xerófila and low: retamo, chilca (an endemic tree that is native

, in Skirts Oriental Foot pole, also of La Rioja and San Luis), jarilla, cacti and a large number of carob.

Animals

The fauna is represented by

hare Hares and jackrabbits are mammals belonging to the genus ''Lepus''. They are herbivores, and live solitarily or in pairs. They nest in slight depressions called forms, and their young are able to fend for themselves shortly after birth. The ge ...

s, some

fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

es,

rheas The rheas ( ), also known as ñandus ( ) or South American ostriches, are large ratites (flightless birds without a keel on their sternum bone) in the order Rheiformes, native to South America, distantly related to the ostrich and emu. Most taxo ...

armadillo Armadillos (meaning "little armored ones" in Spanish) are New World placental mammals in the order Cingulata. The Chlamyphoridae and Dasypodidae are the only surviving families in the order, which is part of the superorder Xenarthra, along wi ...

s and

guanaco The guanaco (; ''Lama guanicoe'') is a camelid native to South America, closely related to the llama. Guanacos are one of two wild South American camelids, the other being the vicuña, which lives at higher elevations. Etymology The guanaco g ...

s in the high peaks of Pie de Palo. There are also a large number of insects (

mosquitoes Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''culex'' meaning "gnat"). The word "mosquito" (formed by ''mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish for "litt ...

, flies,

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

assassin bug The Reduviidae are a large cosmopolitan family of the order Hemiptera (true bugs). Among the Hemiptera and together with the Nabidae almost all species are terrestrial ambush predators: most other predatory Hemiptera are aquatic. The main exampl ...

cicada The cicadas () are a superfamily, the Cicadoidea, of insects in the order Hemiptera (true bugs). They are in the suborder Auchenorrhyncha, along with smaller jumping bugs such as leafhoppers and froghoppers. The superfamily is divided into two ...

s, etc.), arachnids (scorpions and different species of spiders) and reptiles (lizards, iguanas and snakes), especially in the area of sand dunes. Daytime temperatures are high and the nights are cooler. In some cases, there is isolated snowfall in the area known as Vallecito, as happened in the winters of 1999 to 2000.

References

{{coord, 31, 40, S, 68, 08, W, type:landmark_source:USNO/HMNAO, display=title Departments of San Juan Province, Argentina Wine regions of Argentina Chonan languages