San Juan Province () is a province of Argentina, located in the western part of the country. Neighbouring provinces are, moving clockwise from the north,

La Rioja La Rioja () is an autonomous communities in Spain, autonomous community and provinces of Spain, province in Spain, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Its capital is Logroño. Other List of municipalities in La Rioja, cities and towns in the ...

, San Luis and Mendoza. It borders with

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

to the west. The province has an area of 89,651 km², covering a mountainous region with scarce vegetation, fertile oases and turbulent rivers. Throughout the province there are a number of

paleontological Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

sites. Similar to other regions in Argentina, agriculture is one of the most important economic activities, highlighting wine production and olive oil. Additionally, a variety of fruits and vegetables are produced in the fertile valleys irrigated by artificial channels in the western part, close to 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 ...

mountain range. This is the second province in terms of the volume of wine production at the national level and in South America, and possesses outstanding varietal wines. It is also an important center of mining and oil production.

History

Before the arrival of

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

conquistadores Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (; ; ) were Spanish Empire, Spanish and Portuguese Empire, Portuguese colonizers who explored, traded with and colonized parts of the Americas, Africa, Oceania and Asia during the Age of Discovery. Sailing ...

, different tribes like

Huarpe The Huarpes or Warpes are an Indigenous people of Argentina, living in the Cuyo region. Some scholars assume that in the Huarpe language, this word means "sandy ground," but according to ''Arte y Vocabulario de la lengua general del Reino de C ...

Diaguita The Diaguita people are a group of South American Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous people native to the Chilean Norte Chico, Chile, Norte Chico and the Argentine Northwest. Western or Chilean Diaguitas lived mainly in the Transvers ...

s, Capazanes, Olongastas and Yacampis, highly influenced by the

Inca Empire The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The History of the Incas, Inca ...

, inhabited the area. The city of San Juan de la Frontera was founded by Juan Jufré y Montesa in 1562 and relocated 2 kilometres south in 1593 due to the frequent flooding of the San Juan River. In 1776, San Juan was annexed to the

Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata or Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires ( or Virreinato de Buenos Aires or ) meaning "River of the Silver", also called the "Viceroyalty of River Plate" in some scholarly writings, in southern South America, was ...

, becoming one of the cities of the Province of Cuyo. In the same year, the first recorded earthquake caused massive damage to the city. The father of Argentine independence, Gen. Jose de San Martin, was appointed Governor of the Province of Cuyo in 1814. From there, San Martin began his legendary crossing of the

, one of military history's great tactical decisions. San Juan, then a small town, was a great supporter of the expedition supplying gold, men and mules. In 1820, San Juan was granted autonomy from the Province of Cuyo, thereby becoming an autonomous province. The remainder of Cuyo region became

Mendoza Province Mendoza (), officially the Province of Mendoza, is a province of Argentina, in the western central part of the country in the Cuyo region. It borders San Juan to the north, La Pampa and Neuquén to the south, San Luis to the east, and the r ...

. Following an era of international isolation for Argentina, the advent of new, more liberal government in 1853 attracted a number of exiled intellectuals back into San Juan. Among these, was a San Juan military officer and novelist named

Domingo Sarmiento Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (15 February 1811 – 11 September 1888) was President of Argentina from 1868 to 1874. He was a member of a group of intellectuals, known as the ''1837 generation, Generation of 1837'', who had a great influence on 19t ...

. Sarmiento was eventually elected governor in 1862, pursuing sorely needed public investments and enacting Argentina's first law mandating compulsory education (at that time about 80% of the adult population lacked any form of education). Once elected President of Argentina in 1868, those policies became national law. In 1944 a moderate, yet highly destructive earthquake near the capital destroyed most of the city and killed 10,000 people. A fundraiser was organized to raise money for the victims of the quake where Colonel

Juan Perón Juan Domingo Perón (, , ; 8 October 1895 – 1 July 1974) was an Argentine military officer and Statesman (politician), statesman who served as the History of Argentina (1946-1955), 29th president of Argentina from 1946 to Revolución Libertad ...

met his eventual wife and political companion Eva Duarte. A more powerful earthquake stuck the same city in 1977; however new construction codes put in effect following the 1944 incident kept damage to a relative minimum. The most noteworthy loss following this event was the destruction of the Cathedral of San Juan (''image, at top''). A new, modernist house of worship was quickly put up in its place and inaugurated in 1979. Among the most rapidly growing provinces in Argentina after 1945, the national government began the construction of the National University of San Juan, which opened its doors in 1973. Congress further responded to the needs of San Juan's growing agricultural sector by breaking ground in the mid '70s for the largest hydrostructural project in the province up to that point, the Ullum Dam and Reservoir. Inaugurated in 1980, it has contributed to the province's production of irrigated desert crops, like olives, figs and, most importantly, wine grapes. In 2005, Barrick Gold Corporation, one of the world's largest gold-mining conglomerates, announced the purchase of large tracts in the San Juan Andes where a gold mine was started. These have, so far, been yielding over 11,000 ounces of gold yearly, though evidence suggests these activities may be having an adverse impact on San Juan's glaciers. In 2007, the same company installed the world's highest-situated

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

at the Veladero mine in San Juan Province at nearly 4,200m elevation.

Geography

The province is part of the continental semi-desert Cuyo region. The arid plains start on the east, with a few low hills in the middle and swiftly turn into 6,000-meter-high mountain peaks towards the west. Both areas are subject to the dry hot Zonda (a kind of

foehn wind A Foehn, or Föhn (, , , ), is a type of dry, relatively warm downslope wind in the lee of a mountain range. It is a rain shadow wind that results from the subsequent adiabatic warming of air that has dropped most of its moisture on windw ...

). Most of the precipitations take place during the summer, often as electrical storms. The hot wind has modeled the clay-rich red soil into ''Pampa del Leoncito'' (''Reserva Natural Estricta El Leoncito'') and ''

Valle de la Luna Valle de la Luna is Spanish for ''Valley of the Moon'' and it may refer to: * Valle de la Luna (Argentina) * Valle de la Luna (Bolivia) in the La Paz Department, Bolivia * Valle de la Luna, Potosí, Bolivia (also called "El Sillar") in the Potosí ...

'' ('' Parque Provincial Ischigualasto'') 200-million-year-old geological formations. The Jáchal and

San Juan San Juan, Spanish for Saint John (disambiguation), Saint John, most commonly refers to: * San Juan, Puerto Rico * San Juan, Argentina * San Juan, Metro Manila, a highly urbanized city in the Philippines San Juan may also refer to: Places Arge ...

rivers, both part of Desaguadero River system, are the source of fertile valleys and centre of the province's economy. The San Juan River finishes in the Huanacache lagoons (sometimes called ''Guanacache''), on the southeast. The Andes of San Juan Province belong to the Dry Andes climatic province.

Permafrost Permafrost () is soil or underwater sediment which continuously remains below for two years or more; the oldest permafrost has been continuously frozen for around 700,000 years. Whilst the shallowest permafrost has a vertical extent of below ...

is widespread above 3000 masl in the Andes and

rock glacier Rock glaciers are distinctive geomorphological landforms that consist either of angular rock debris frozen in interstitial ice, former "true" glaciers overlain by a layer of talus, or something in between. Rock glaciers are normally found at hi ...

s are common. The northern part of the province contain both intrusive rocks of the Colangüil Batholith and a large

sedimentary basin Sedimentary basins are region-scale depressions of the Earth's crust where subsidence has occurred and a thick sequence of sediments have accumulated to form a large three-dimensional body of sedimentary rock They form when long-term subsidence ...

known as Iglesia Basin. Within this basin there are

hot springs A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...

Demographics

San Juan concentrates most of its population in the oases or central valleys, Tulum Valley, Zonda, Ullum and Jáchal, containing nearly 80% of this population. The remaining is located in the oasis located at the foot of the Andes in Iglesias and Calingasta. Another population concentration is in Fertile Valley.

Economy

San Juan focuses its economy in agriculture, specially wine production. Additionally, preserved foods production is highly developed. Mining is a growing activity, with the extraction of various minerals financed by multinational companies. Tourism is a relatively new and flourishing activity and it is becoming an important source of revenue for the province. San Juan's is a somewhat underdeveloped, yet diversified, economy. Its output was estimated in 2006 at US$3.613 billion, or US$5,827 per capita (a third less than the national average). Agriculture has, traditionally, played a small, though significant role in San Juan's economy. The province produces crops not widely grown in other regions of Argentina. San Juan is the second-largest producer of

Argentine Wine Argentina is the fifth largest producer of wine in the world.H. Johnson & J. Robinson: ''The World Atlas of Wine'', pp. 300-301, Mitchell Beazley Publishing 2005 . Argentine wine, as with some aspects of Cuisine of Argentina, Argentine cuisine, h ...

, after neighboring

. The winemaking industry reached San Juan between the years 1569 and 1589 carried by the Spanish conquistadors. Blessed by the optimal weather conditions and soil, the wine-making largely expanded and accelerated development in the province. Since the beginning, the inhabitants of the region understood that the arid climate required an advanced artificial irrigation system with dams and channels.

Viticulture Viticulture (, "vine-growing"), viniculture (, "wine-growing"), or winegrowing is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine ...

is the main crop of the province's economy, with some 500 km² (56% of the productive area), and the rest is reserved for wine production counting 90% of the crop. Other products include tomato, maize, potato, fig and peach. Since 1980, San Juan has experienced an industrial expansion that now includes, in addition to the wineries, food processing plants, chemical, plastics, iron, auto parts and textiles factories. Manufacturing now accounts for nearly 20% of San Juan's production output. In the year 2000, the province came into mineral development with the Veladero Project of Barrick Gold, which, on the first year of mining alone, yielded more than 11,000 ounces of gold. These efforts were intensified with more projects including the Easter Lama, with the particularity that it is shared with neighboring Chile. The more widespread mining products are gold, lead,

graphite Graphite () is a Crystallinity, crystalline allotrope (form) of the element carbon. It consists of many stacked Layered materials, layers of graphene, typically in excess of hundreds of layers. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable ...

and

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

. Large-scale efforts began, in 2006, in the search for petroleum in the department of Jáchal. Energy production is mainly hydroelectric, produced by a few dams such as Quebrada de Ullum, La Roza, San Emiliano and El Pinar Station, which also help to regulate the water level for irrigation of the arid lands. Electricity is also produced, in a lesser proportion, by

thermal power station A thermal power station, also known as a thermal power plant, is a type of power station in which the heat energy generated from various fuel sources (e.g., coal, natural gas, nuclear fuel, etc.) is converted to electrical energy. The heat ...

s. San Juan has recently started to have a flourishing tourism industry. Remarkable places are the city of San Juan, the

Ischigualasto Provincial Park Ischigualasto Provincial Park (), 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 Province (Argentina), San Juan Province, nor ...

, the Ullum Dam, San Guillermo National Park, the Pismanta hot springs, the Mercedario Mount and the pagan '' Difunta Correa'' shrine. These sites are specially suitable for

ecotourism Ecotourism is a form of nature-oriented tourism intended to contribute to the Ecological conservation, conservation of the natural environment, generally defined as being minimally impactful, and including providing both contributions to conserv ...

or adventure tourism. Furthermore, an increase in

agrotourism Agritourism or agrotourism involves any agriculturally based operation or activity that brings visitors to a farm or ranch. It encompasses a wide range of activities, including direct-to-consumer sales such as farm stands and u-pick, agricultu ...

has started recently, particularly, around the wine industry, creating the so-called "Wine Routes."

Government

The provincial government is divided into three branches: the executive, headed by a popularly elected governor, who appoints the cabinet; the

legislative A legislature (, ) is a deliberative assembly with the legal authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country, nation or city on behalf of the people therein. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers ...

; and the

judiciary The judiciary (also known as the judicial system, judicature, judicial branch, judiciative branch, and court or judiciary system) is the system of courts that adjudicates legal disputes/disagreements and interprets, defends, and applies the law ...

, headed by the Supreme Court. The Constitution of San Juan Province, Argentina forms the formal law of the province. In Argentina, the most important law enforcement organization is the

Argentine Federal Police The Argentine Federal Police ( or PFA) is the national civil police force of the Argentine federal government. The PFA has detachments throughout the country. Until January 1, 2017, it also acted as the local law enforcement agency in the cap ...

but the additional work is carried out by the San Juan Provincial Police.

Political division

The province is divided into 19

departments Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military * Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

(). They are formally considered to be a single

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

, and usually contain one or more population centers (i.e. towns and cities). # Albardón ( General San Martín) # Angaco ( Villa del Salvador) # Calingasta ( Tamberías) #

Capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

(

) # Caucete ( Caucete) # Chimbas ( Paula Alabarracín de Sarmiento) # Iglesia (

Rodeo Rodeo () is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working vaqu ...

) # Jáchal ( San José de Jáchal) # Nueve de Julio ( 9 de Julio) # Pocito ( Villa Aberastain) # Rawson ( Villa Krause) # Rivadavia ( Rivadavia) # San Martín ( San Isidro) # Santa Lucía ( Santa Lucía) #

Sarmiento Sarmiento may refer to: Places Argentina *Sarmiento Department, San Juan, a subdivision of the San Juan Province * Sarmiento Department, Santiago del Estero, a subdivision of the Santiago del Estero Province * Sarmiento Department, Chubut, a subdi ...

(

Media Agua Media Agua is a town in San Juan Province, Argentina. It is the headquarters of the municipal authorities of department Sarmiento and one of the more important towns in the southern San Juan area and within the Tulum Valley, the province's mos ...

) # Ullum ( Villa Ibáñez) # Valle Fértil ( San Agustín) # Veinticinco de Mayo ( Santa Rosa) # Zonda ( Basilio Nievas)

Tourism

San Juan, known as ''The Land of the Sun'', offers mountains, valleys and turbulent rivers of melting glacier water from the

. This features create a unique landscape that is beginning to be intensively exploited by tourism. Tourism infrastructure has been also improved recently with the installation of a considerable number of hotels and other accommodation. Heavily developed areas are the northwest, in the town of

, where posts and countryside hotels have been installed. In the west, the towns of Calingasta Barreal and Tamberías, many projects are being develop to foster adventure tourism by with the practice of climbing the Mount Mercedario, which is one of the highest peaks in America. The northern zone, Jáchal, is known for its cultural tourism related to the gaucho tradition. Nevertheless,

is the economic center of the province and also the most visited place. It is known for its modern architecture that differentiates it from others cities in the rest of the country, with wide tree-lined streets as well as hardwood parks, plazas and walkways, in the middle of the desert of San Juan. This is the cause for which has the nickname of 'city oasis'. The city holds several attractions such as Sarmiento's birthplace and modern

Cathedral A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually s ...

, among others. A number of joyful celebrations are held in the province, combining old and new traditions that pay homage to economic activities or natural events like Fiesta Nacional del Sol, which takes the form of annual parades carousel and various artistic performances. The winter sports industry has a prosper future in the province. A ski resort is under development, located in the mountainous area of Calingasta, western part of the province, where the largest ski tracks in South America are being constructed. This will be the northernmost ski resort in Argentina and will be known as ''ManantialesManantiales ski resort project home page, http://manantiales.inar.net/

Transportation

San Juan has a good transportation network, as most of the routes that connect with the rest of the country are in very good maintenance condition. The more important routes are the RN40, which crosses from north to south and joins the provinces of Mendoza and La Rioja, the RN20, which links San Juan with the city of Buenos Aires and Cordoba, the RN150, which allows a connection to the country of

. There are important projects under way that will allow a connection with the province of La Rioja, the entire northern Fertile Valley, Jáchal and Church, and with Chile, which will be a vital part of the strategic corridor Pacific-Atlantic . This project for the construction of a communication path connecting the Pacific ports of (

Coquimbo Coquimbo is a port List of cities in Chile, city, Communes of Chile, commune and capital of the Elqui Province, located on the Pan-American Highway, in the Coquimbo Region of Chile. Coquimbo is situated in a valley south of La Serena, Chile, La S ...

, Chile) and

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

(

Porto Alegre Porto Alegre (, ; , ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Brazilian Federative units of Brazil, state of Rio Grande do Sul. Its population of roughly 1.4 million inhabitants (2022) makes it the List of largest cities in Brazil, 11th-most p ...

, Brazil) by Paso de Agua Negra, has been under development for more than a decade. Its importance lies in the necessity of the Southern Cone countries to put their export production into the global market at lower costs. Long-distance transportation exists and allows weekly trips to almost all the other provinces and cities in the country. The main hub is the modern bus terminal of the city of San Juan. There are another important transportation centers in San José de Jáchal and in the city of Caucete, which is currently under construction. By bus, it takes around 18 hours to get

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 ...

. There are daily flight services to

from Domingo Faustino Sarmiento Airport. The public transportation system in the city of

and surrounding areas includes

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used ...

es that connect downtown with other cities such as Villa Krause, Rivadavia, Santa Lucia, Villa Paula Sarmiento Albarracín and Aberastain. Private taxis (called ''Remis'') and public taxis also exist. Rapid population growth has led to a number of projects for the construction of mass transit systems.