Aluminé is a second class municipality and the capital city of Aluminé Department located in the west-central part of the

Neuquén Province Neuquén () is a Provinces of Argentina, province of Argentina, located in the west of the country, at the northern end of Patagonia. It borders Mendoza Province to the north, Rio Negro Province to the southeast, and Chile to the west. It also me ...

, Argentina. With an economy based on

animal husbandry Animal husbandry is the branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, animal fiber, fibre, milk, or other products. It includes day-to-day care, management, production, nutrition, selective breeding, and the raising ...

, forest exploitation and tourism, it serves as a service center for the nearby rural areas. Located near the

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

, the town benefits from mountainous landscapes featuring clearwater lakes, streams and typical local vegetation, including the official provincial tree

Araucaria araucana ''Araucaria araucana'', commonly called the monkey puzzle tree, monkey tail tree, pewen, pehuen pine or piñonero, is an evergreen tree belonging to the family Araucariaceae and growing to a trunk diameter of and a height of . It is native to ...

coihue ''Nothofagus dombeyi'', Dombey's beech, coigue, coihue or coigüe (from Mapudungun ''koywe'') is a tree species native to southern Chile and the Andean parts of Argentine Patagonia. It is a fast-growing species that can live in a wide range of ...

and mallín. It is a popular destination for a variety of outdoor activities, such as

trekking Backpacking is the outdoor recreation of carrying gear on one's back while hiking for more than a day. It is often an extended journey and may involve camping outdoors. In North America, tenting is common, where simple shelters and mountain hu ...

, sport-fishing and

rafting Rafting and whitewater rafting are recreational outdoor activities which use an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other body of water. This is often done on whitewater or different degrees of rough water. Dealing with risk is often a ...

History

Aluminé is a name of

Mapudungun Mapuche ( , ; from 'land' and 'people', meaning 'the people of the land') or Mapudungun (from 'land' and 'speak, speech', meaning 'the speech of the land'; also spelled Mapuzugun and Mapudungu) is either a language isolate or member of the s ...

origin, meaning shining at the bottom, referring to the clear waters found in the region. The territory was populated by

Mapuche The Mapuche ( , ) also known as Araucanians are a group of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging e ...

communities under the rule of ''

lonco A lonko or lonco (from Mapudungun ''longko'', literally "head"), is a chief of several Mapuche communities. These were often ulmen, the wealthier men in the lof. In wartime, lonkos of the various local rehue or the larger aillarehue would gather ...

'' Reuque Curá 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 fortress Paso de los Andes was founded after the

Argentine Army The Argentine Army () is the Army, land force branch of the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic and the senior military service of Argentina. Under the Argentine Constitution, the president of Argentina is the commander-in-chief of the Armed For ...

reached the area, and the first settlers arrived in February 1884. The first authorities, such as the local court, the

civil registry Civil registration is the system by which a government records the vital events ( births, marriages, and deaths) of its citizens and residents. The resulting repository or database has different names in different countries and even in diffe ...

and the police station, started working in the nearby rural area known as Ruca Choroy. Aluminé was established on 20 October 1915 by provincial decree 664 in the context of the departmental reorganization of the Neuquén Territory, today the Neuquén Province. In 1913, there were three general stores in the area. The locals used to organize caravans to

Zapala Zapala is a city and touristic destination in the Patagonian province of Neuquén, Argentina with about 32,000 inhabitants according to the . The city is located at the geographic center of the province at the confluence of national and provincia ...

and

Neuquén Neuquén (; ) is the capital city of the Argentine province of Neuquén and of the Confluencia Department, located in the east of the province. It occupies a strip of land west of the confluence of the Limay and Neuquén rivers which form t ...

to purchase and exchange food and other goods for agricultural products. The town grew as the years went by. Into the 1920s a series of new businesses opened. The first developing committee, as well as the first elementary school, were established in 1926.

Geography

The town is located on the left shore of the Aluminé River in the Andean region of the western Neuquén Province. The general elevation is above sea level. It is served by the Provincial Route 23 with a distance of from the province capital,

and from

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 landscape around Aluminé is mountainous with clear water lakes and creeks. The prevailing vegetation includes

and mallín. Mammal species such as

mountain lions The cougar (''Puma concolor'') (, '' KOO-gər''), also called puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther is a large small cat native to the Americas. It inhabits North, Central and South America, making it the most widely distributed wild ...

pudú The pudus (Mapudungun ''püdü'' or ''püdu'', , ) are two species of South American deer from the genus ''Pudu'', and are the world's smallest deer. The chevrotains (mouse-deer; Tragulidae) are smaller, but they are not true deer. The name i ...

and

South Andean deer The south Andean deer (''Hippocamelus bisulcus''), also known as the southern guemal, south Andean huemul, southern huemul, or Chilean ''huemul'' or '' güemul'' ( , ), is an endangered species of deer native to the mountains of Argentina and Ch ...

inhabit the area. The bird species include the

Andean Condor The Andean condor (''Vultur gryphus'') is a South American New World vulture and is the only member of the genus ''Vultur''. It is found in the Andes mountains and adjacent Pacific coasts of western South America. With a maximum wingspan of and ...

black-necked swan The black-necked swan (''Cygnus melancoryphus'') is a species of waterfowl in the tribe Cygnini of the subfamily Anserinae.HBW and BirdLife International (2021) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of ...

and

Darwin's rhea Darwin's rhea or the lesser rhea (''Rhea pennata'') is a large flightless bird, the smaller of the two extant species of rheas. It is found in the Altiplano and Patagonia in South America. Description The lesser rhea stands at tall. Length ...

. A variety of

trout Trout (: trout) is a generic common name for numerous species of carnivorous freshwater ray-finned fishes belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of which are members of the subfamily Salmoninae in the ...

s, such as

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributary, tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead (sometimes called steelhead trout) is an Fish migration#Classification, ...

and

brown trout The brown trout (''Salmo trutta'') is a species of salmonid ray-finned fish and the most widely distributed species of the genus ''Salmo'', endemic to most of Europe, West Asia and parts of North Africa, and has been widely introduced globally ...

, along with

perch Perch is a common name for freshwater fish from the genus ''Perca'', which belongs to the family Percidae of the large order Perciformes. The name comes from , meaning the type species of this genus, the European perch (''P. fluviatilis'') ...

es and other species, are common in the bodies of water.

Climate

Population

Demographics

In the census of 2010 there were a total of 4,861 residents in town, showing an increase of 32% compared to the 3,720 in the census of 2001. In 1970,, the population was 1,239 people. The next censuses showed a total of 1,640 (1980) and 2,767 (1991) inhabitants, respectively. There are also some Mapuche and araucanized Tehuelche communities near Aluminé that though influenced by the dominant trends outside their society, are open to visitors who want to know more about their culture.

Notable residents

* Juan Benigar (1883–1950), Croatian-born scientist,

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

and

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

who settled and raised children in the area as a garment entrepreneur, contributed to the local community by publishing different books on sociological matters including the natives' and settlers' lives in

Patagonia Patagonia () is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers ...

. * Félix San Martín (1876–1944), writer and provisional Governor of the Province, whose work covered topics of Neuquén's history.

Economy and tourism

As the administration seat of the Aluminé Department, the town serves as a service center for its territory. The local economy is based on

, forest exploitation and tourism. The infrastructure is well developed with services such as hotels, restaurants, gas stations and grocery stores. With a convenient location near the Andes in the southern Neuquén Province, the landscape is composed of mountains, lakes and streams. Aluminé is a part of tourist trails such as the Pehuén route and the Lakes Corridor. The natural environment offers the possibility of practicing different outdoor activities including

hiking A hike is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century. Long hikes as part of a religious pilgrimage have existed for a much longer time. "Hi ...

, horse riding, sport-fishing,

, and

kayak ] A kayak is a small, narrow human-powered watercraft typically propelled by means of a long, double-bladed paddle. The word ''kayak'' originates from the Inuktitut word '' qajaq'' (). In British English, the kayak is also considered to be ...

ing as well as winter sports like skiing on the mountain Batea Mahuida. Several annual events take place in Aluminé. The Town Anniversary Day on October 20 is celebrated with cultural activities, such as Jineteada gaucha, jineteada, Argentine folk-music and a craftsmen fair. Since 1988, the local products exposition the Provincial Araucaria Festival, honoring the Araucaria araucana, the official tree of the Province. Mapuche hand-made products can be found at the House of Culture on the craftsmen fair. The public library Juan Benigar, named after the Croatian pioneer, offers an exposition on his life and work.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alumine Populated places in Neuquén Province Cities in Argentina