Curuzú Cuatiá is a city in the south of the

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

of Corrientes in the

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

. It had about 34,000 inhabitants at the , and is the head town of the Curuzú Cuatiá Department. The area has an undulated terrain, with many small

river A river is a natural stream of fresh water that flows on land or inside Subterranean river, caves towards another body of water at a lower elevation, such as an ocean, lake, or another river. A river may run dry before reaching the end of ...

s and

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a strea ...

s that empty into the

Paraná River The Paraná River ( ; ; ) is a river in south-central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina for some ."Parana River". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. ...

in the west, or into the

Uruguay River The Uruguay River ( ; ) is a major river in South America. It flows from north to south and forms parts of the boundaries of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, separating some of the Argentine provinces of La Mesopotamia from the other two countr ...

in the east. The climate is wet

subtropical The subtropical zones or subtropics are geographical zone, geographical and Köppen climate classification, climate zones immediately to the Northern Hemisphere, north and Southern Hemisphere, south of the tropics. Geographically part of the Ge ...

, with uniformly distributed annual

rainfall Rain is a form of precipitation where water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. ...

of 1,200 mm on average. The average temperatures are 14.5 °C (winter) and 26 °C (summer), with recorded extremes of −3 °C and 44 °C respectively. The city is served by an

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...

, located at .

History

The name ''Curuzú Cuatiá'' is of Guaraní origin and means "Engraved Cross". The early settlers ( Spanish ''conquistadores'' and

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

missionaries from

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

) called it ''Posta de Cruz'' since the site was a crossroads, marked by a large cross with an inscription. After the

May Revolution The May Revolution () was a week-long series of events that took place from 18 to 25 May 1810, in Buenos Aires, capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. This Spanish colony included roughly the territories of present-day Argentina, ...

that initiated the struggle for independence of Argentina from Spain, the army led by General

Manuel Belgrano Manuel José Joaquín del Corazón de Jesús Belgrano (3 June 1770 – 20 June 1820), usually referred to as Manuel Belgrano (), was an Argentina, Argentine public servant, economist, lawyer, politician, journalist, and military leader. He to ...

passed by. Belgrano solved a government conflict in the area by assigning the jurisdiction to the ''Cabildo'' of Corrientes. On 16 November 1810 he dictated the official foundation of the city, which (respecting the wishes and beliefs of the population) he named ''Nuestra Señora de Pilar de Curuzú Cuatiá'' ("Our Lady of Pilar of Curuzú Cuatiá"). The area saw several important battles during the centralist-federalist struggle, the most remarkable being the Battle of Pago Largo (31 March 1839) against Entre Ríos supporters of

Juan Manuel de Rosas Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rozas y López de Osornio (30 March 1793 – 14 March 1877), nicknamed "Restorer of the Laws", was an Argentine politician and army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confedera ...

. The town was officially assigned the category of village (''villa'') on 9 October 1852, and became a city on 25 October 1888.

Climate

References

*
Municipality of Curuzú Cuatiá
- Official website. {{DEFAULTSORT:Curuzu Cuatia Populated places in Corrientes Province Guaraní words and phrases Cities in Argentina