Valle Fértil is a department of the province 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), ...

(

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 List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

). Characterized by highly fertile landscapes and contains the

Ischigualasto Provincial Park Ischigualasto Provincial Park ( es, Parque Provincial Ischigualasto), also called ''Valle de la Luna'' ("Valley of the Moon" or "Moon Valley"), due to its moon like appearance, is a provincial protected area in the north-east of San Juan Provinc ...

, also known as the ''Valley of the Moon'', which is visited by tourists from around the world.

Origin of the name

The Spaniards, upon their arrival, found the indigenous people referred to the area as "Chaj Nai--Paj", which means "green or fertile country of many rivers".

Tourism

The main attraction is Ischigualasto, a strange landscape, in what may have been one of the most interesting stages of the earth's history, the Triassic period, the place known as the Valley of the Moon, for the apparent resemblance to a lunar landscape. It is a protected area for the preservation and study of strange geological formations,

wildlife Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...

flora Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring ( indigenous) native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' gut flora'' or '' skin flora''. ...

and

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s. Departments of San Juan Province, Argentina {{SanJuanAR-geo-stub