Santiago del Estero

After a series of exploratory expeditions from Chile starting in 1543, Santiago del Estero del Nuevo Maestrazgo was founded on July 25, 1553, by Francisco de Aguirre (although some historians consider its true foundation to be in 1550). Although it is the oldest city in Argentina, it preserves little of its former Spanish colonial architecture, except for several churches. In 1576, the governor of a province in northern Argentina commissioned the military to search for a huge mass of iron, which he had heard that Natives used for their weapons. They called the area "Heavenly Fields," translated into Spanish as Campo del Cielo. (This term now refers to a protected area situated on the boundary between the provinces of Chaco and Santiago del Estero, where a group of iron meteorites were found, estimated as having fallen in a Holocene impact event some 4,000–5,000 years ago. …

Santiago del Estero lies in a transition zone between more temperate climates, typical of the Pampa, and the hotter climates of the Chaco region: while daytime highs are decidedly very hot, nights tend to cool down more than most locations in the Chaco. It has a hot semi-arid climate (BSh) bordering on a humid subtropical climate (Cwa) under the Köppen climate classification. The city is notorious for its very hot summer weather: the average high is 34 °C (93.2 °F) and 40 °C (104.0 °F) are attained on a regular basis; the highest temperature on record is 46.5 °C (115.7 °F) on November 1, 2009. Nighttime temperatures are 20 °C (68.0 °F) in midsummer. …

Some important figures related to the history of Santiago del Estero are Colonel Juan Francisco Borges, who led the local battalion of the Army of the North during the Argentine War of Independence (and an ancestor of writer Jorge Luis Borges), the 19th-century painter Felipe Taboada, as well as Francisco René and Mario Roberto Santucho, founders of the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (Workers' Revolutionary Party, PRT) and the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (People's Revolutionary Army, ERP), the two leading guerrilla organizations during the wave of unrest in the 1970s. …

The Vicecomodoro Ángel de la Paz Aragonés Airport was built in 1959 and currently has flights to and from Buenos Aires operated by Aerolíneas Argentinas. In recent years it has been refurbished and expanded given that it was operating at full capacity. The city's main road connection to other provinces is National Route 9, which connects it to the cities of Cordoba, Rosario and Buenos Aires to the south and San Miguel de Tucumán, Salta and San Salvador de Jujuy to the north. National Route 64 connects the city to San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca, the capital of Catamarca Province. In November 2008, a new long-distance bus terminal was inaugurated, replacing the previous bus terminal in the city. The city has historically been connected through the Belgrano and Mitre railways. …

Nicolás Aguirre (born 1988), basketball player Amancio Jacinto Alcorta (1805–1862), composer and politician Casimiro Alcorta (1840–1913), tango musician Patrocinio Díaz (1905-1969), singer and actress Ramón Carrillo (1906–1956), neurosurgeon and public health advocate, first health minister of Argentina Mariela Coronel (born 1981), footballer Agustina Palacio de Libarona (1825–1880), writer, storyteller; also known as "La Heroína del Bracho" Omar Sebastián Pérez (born 1981), footballer Alberto Soriano (1905–1981), composer Federico Villegas (born 1966), diplomat Sergio Unrein (born 1991), footballer