Choya is a village and municipality in the

Andalgalá Department Andalgalá is a central department of Catamarca Province in Argentina. The provincial subdivision has a population of about 14,000 inhabitants in an area of , and its capital city is Andalgalá, which is located around from Buenos Aires. Eco ...

Catamarca Province Catamarca () is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. The province had a population of 334,568 as per the , and covers an area of 102,602 km2. Its literacy rate is 95.5%. Neighbouring provinces are (clockwise, fr ...

in northwestern

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 ...

. The town is located on National Route 47.

History

Early mentions of Choya exist in colonial Spanish records. In 1660,

Alonso Mercado y Villacorta Alonso de Mercado y Villacorta, Marquis of Villacorta was a Spanish civil servant, acting in the Río de la Plata area of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Born in Catalonia, he was Governor of Tucumán from 1655 to 1660. He was conned by Pedro Bohórquez ...

used his position as Governor of Rio de la Plata to distributed management responsibilities regarding the native peoples in the Andalgalá valley to three trustees, including Gregorio de Villagra. Several families of native Ingamana people were installed in Choya in 1674. National Route 63 was established in the 20th century, connecting the town of Capillitas to the city of

Andalgalá Andalgalá is a city in the west-center of the province of Catamarca, Argentina, located in a valley near the Sierra de Aconquija, 260 km from the provincial capital San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca. It has about 14,000 inhabitants as per ...

via 104 kilometres of unpaved road, with Choya as one of the primary stops on the highway. In 1980, National Decree 1595 of 1979 went into effect, renaming National Route 63 to National Route 47, the name by which it is now known. From March 1990 to January 1991, a survey on genomic variation amongst gray leaf-eared mice collected specimens from the area in and around Choya.

References

{{coord, 27, 32, S, 66, 24, W, type:city_source:kolossus-eswiki, display=title Populated places in Catamarca Province