Santo Tomé is a city in the

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

of Corrientes in the

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

. It had about 22,634 inhabitants at the . It is the head town of the department of the same name.

History

Santo Tomé was founded in 1632 by the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

missionaries Luis Ernot and Manuel Bertot, with help from two native Guaraní chiefs that converted to

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

. Its name is variedly found as Santo Tomás, Santo Tomás Apóstol, Santo Thomé and Santo Tomé.

Geography

The city lies in the north-east of the province, on the right-hand (western) shore of the

Uruguay River The Uruguay River ( ; ) is a major river in South America. It flows from north to south and forms parts of the boundaries of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, separating some of the Argentine provinces of La Mesopotamia from the other two countr ...

, opposite the city of São Borja in

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, ; ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative units of Brazil#List, fifth-most populous state and the List of Brazilian s ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. The area has typical features of the ''Región Submisionera'', with reddish soil, abundant flora and high lands, alternating with gray-soil lowlands and

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

s. The climate is subtropical, with average temperatures of 20 °C (the summer maximum is 40 °C, and winters are mild). The average annual

rainfall Rain is a form of precipitation where water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. ...

is between 1,400 and 1,600 mm, peaking in April (autumn) and October (spring).

Notable people

* Clotilde González de Fernández (1880-1935), Argentine educator, piano teacher, writer

References

* Populated places in Corrientes Province Cities in Argentina {{Corrientes-geo-stub