Arequito is a town (''comuna'') in the south of the

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

of Santa Fe, Argentina, southwest from the

provincial capital A capital city or capital is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, department, or other subnational entity, usually as its seat of the government. A capital is typically a city that physically encompasses the g ...

and west of

Rosario Rosario () is the largest city in the central provinces of Argentina, Argentine province of Santa Fe Province, Santa Fe. The city is located northwest of Buenos Aires, on the west bank of the Paraná River. Rosario is the third-most populous ci ...

. It has a population of about 7,000 inhabitants as per the . The town was founded initially as a waystop (''posta'') by Braulio Areco in 1778. He ended up using a

diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A (abbreviated ) is a word-formati ...

of his surname because there were already two ''postas de Areco'' in Buenos Aires (

Carmen de Areco Carmen de Areco is a town in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It is the administrative centre for Carmen de Areco Partido. History In 1779, Viceroy Vértiz ordered Lieutenant Colonel Francisco Bergezé de Ducás to reinforce the line of defence ...

and

San Antonio de Areco San Antonio de Areco is a city in northern Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, and administrative seat of the partido of San Antonio de Areco. It is located on the Areco River away from Buenos Aires city, the country's capital. San Antonio de Ar ...

). It became a colonist settlement, and in time it was recognized officially as a town, on 1 June 1891. The area received an important influx of

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

(mostly from Europe, and also Syrian-Lebanese) during the second half of the 19th century, and became a highly productive agricultural area. Since 1970 it produces

soybean The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean, which has numerous uses. Traditional unfermented food uses of soybeans include soy milk, from which tofu an ...

(the town is the seat of the National Festival dedicated to this crop, held every October). Arequito became nationally known in the 1990s as the hometown of the young folk singer and composer

Soledad Pastorutti Soledad "La Sole" Pastorutti (born October 12, 1980, in Arequito, Santa Fe, Arequito, Santa Fe Province, Santa Fe) is an Argentine Folk music, folk singer, who brought the Music of Argentina#Folclore, genre to the younger generations at the end ...

References

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History of Arequito
{{Authority control Populated places in Santa Fe Province