Villa Nougués is a settlement in Lules Department,

Tucumán Province Tucumán () is the most densely populated, and the second-smallest by land area, of the provinces of Argentina. Located in the northwest of the country, the province has the capital of San Miguel de Tucumán, often shortened to Tucumán. Neigh ...

, in northern

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 ...

Overview

Situated along the eastern face of San Javier Hill, at 1,350 m (4,450 ft), the settlement was established where a

Jesuit reduction Reductions ( es, reducciones, also called ; , pl. ) were settlements created by Spanish rulers and Roman Catholic missionaries in Spanish America and the Spanish East Indies (the Philippines). In Portuguese-speaking Latin America, such red ...

operated until the order's suppression in 1767. Prominent Tucumán landowner Luis Francisco Nougués chose the site as the location of his summer house in 1899, and his brothers, Juan Calos and Alberto, followed suit, as did

University of Tucumán A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the ...

founder Luis Francisco Nougués. These initial proprietors then resolved to create a community for administrative employees of Nougués' important San Pablo sugar plantation and mill, and founded the town in 1904; Luis Nougués served as Governor of Tucumán from 1906 to 1909. The town's early structures were designed by Polish Argentine architect Juan Hlawascek in the

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

style favored by the Nougués family, originally from the French region of

Haute-Garonne Haute-Garonne (; oc, Nauta Garona, ; en, Upper Garonne) is a department in the Occitanie region of Southwestern France. Named after the river Garonne, which flows through the department. Its prefecture and main city is Toulouse, the country' ...

, and among the most noteworthy of these is the Villa Nougués Inn, built in 1903, the Hotel Club Sol, and the neogothic chapel, completed in 1918 (which hosts regular weddings for couples across Argentina). Local sights also include the numerous gardens, the Virgen de Lourdes grotto, a suspension bridge, and sculptor Juan Carlos Iramain's ''Cristo Redentor'' ("Christ the Redeemer"); the local Las Hortensias Golf Club is the highest in altitude in Argentina. The surrounding

Yungas The Yungas ( Aymara ''yunka'' warm or temperate Andes or earth, Quechua ''yunka'' warm area on the slopes of the Andes) is a bioregion of a narrow band of forest along the eastern slope of the Andes Mountains from Peru and Bolivia, and extends int ...

forest landscape, populated with junipers,

gladiolus ''Gladiolus'' (from Latin, the diminutive of ''gladius'', a sword) is a genus of perennial cormous flowering plants in the iris family (Iridaceae). It is sometimes called the 'sword lily', but is usually called by its generic name (plural ''g ...

hydrangea ''Hydrangea'', () commonly named the hortensia, is a genus of over 75 species of flowering plants native to Asia and the Americas. By far the greatest species diversity is in eastern Asia, notably China, Korea, and Japan. Most are shrubs tall, ...

, and

violets Violet identifies various plant taxa, particularly species in the genus ''Viola'', within which the common violet is the best known member in Eurasia and the common blue violet and common purple violet are the best known members in North America ...

, and the location's proximity to

San Miguel de Tucumán San Miguel de Tucumán (; usually called simply Tucumán) is the capital and largest city of Tucumán Province, located in northern Argentina from Buenos Aires. It is the fifth-largest city of Argentina after Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Argentina, ...

made the town desirable to both prospective homeowners, as well as

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...

, in later decades.

Climate

Owing to a higher altitude, Villa Nougués has a

subtropical highland climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...

: ''Cwb'') with mild, rainy summers and cool, dry winters.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Villa Nougues Populated places in Tucumán Province Populated places established in 1904 Tourism in Argentina