The Salado River (, ) is a river in northern

Buenos Aires Province Buenos Aires, officially the Buenos Aires Province, is the largest and most populous Provinces of Argentina, Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of the province an ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. It originates at El Chañar Lake on the boundary with

Santa Fe Province The Invincible Province of Santa Fe (, , lit. "Holy Faith") 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 2 ...

above mean sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

, and flows generally southeast for before debouching into

Samborombón Bay Samborombón Bay () is a bay on the coast of Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. Located at the Río de la Plata's mouth on the Argentine Sea, it begins about southeast of Buenos Aires and is about wide. Toponymy The bay is thought to have been n ...

, part of the

Río de la Plata The Río de la Plata (; ), also called the River Plate or La Plata River in English, is the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River at Punta Gorda, Colonia, Punta Gorda. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean and ...

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime enviro ...

on the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

. The Salado's mouth is about south of the city of

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

. The Salado's

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

is about , which is over half of the province's area. The region receives an annual average of of precipitation, which often causes

flood A flood is an overflow of water (list of non-water floods, or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are of significant con ...

ing in the low-lying area. The river flows by the cities of Junín,

Roque Pérez Roque Pérez is a town in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It is the administrative headquarters for Roque Pérez Partido. Notable people * Jorge Dalto, pianist (1948–1987) * Ricardo Villa, football coach and former professional midfiel ...

, and General Belgrano, as well as a number of wetlands and lakes; channelization of the lower course has improved the drainage of the river's . Nearly 1 million people live in the basin. Hydrological studies have been performed in the Salado basin, principally in the Azul, Buenos Aires creek basin by the Instituto de Hidrologia de Llanuras de Azul. Ecological studies have been done by the Ecology group of Facultad de Agronomía de la UNICEN.Facultad de Agronomía—UNICEN
/ref> In the 19th century, before the

Conquest of the Desert The Conquest of the Desert () was an Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic, Argentine military campaign directed mainly by General Julio Argentino Roca during the 1870s and 1880s with the intention of establishing dominance over Patagonia, inh ...

, the Salado River served as frontier boundary between the Spanish colonised lands and those still under control of the

indigenous peoples There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

. Because Argentina has another, more important Salado River, in the northern part of the country, this Salado River is sometimes called Salado del Sur ("Southern Salado").

References

Rivers of Buenos Aires Province La Plata basin Rivers of Argentina {{Argentina-river-stub

See also

References