Corrientes, Argentine (Capital) - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

CORRIENTES (San Juan de Corrientes), a city and river port, and the capital of the above province, in the north of the Argentine Republic, on the left bank of the Parana river, 20 m. below the junction of the Upper Parana and Paraguay, and 832 m. N. of Buenos Aires. The name is derived from the siete corrientes (seven currents) caused by rocks in the bed of the river just above the town. Pop. (1895) 16,129; (1907 local estimate) 30,172, largely Indian and of mixed descent. The appearance of Corrientes is not equal to its commercial and political importance, the buildings both public and private being generally poor and antiquated. There are four churches, the more conspicuous of which are the Matriz and San Francisco. The government house, originally a Jesuit college, is an antiquated structure surrounding an open court (patio). There is a national college. The commercial importance of Corrientes results from its unusually favourable situation near the confluence of the Upper Parana and Paraguay, and a short distance below the mouth of the Bermejo. The navigation of the Upper Parana and Bermejo rivers begins here, and freight for the Upper Parana and Chaco rivers is transhipped at Corrientes, which practically controls the trade of the extensive regions tributary to them. Corrientes is the western terminus of the Argentine North-Eastern railway, which crosses the province S.E. to Monte Caseros, where it connects with the East Argentine line running S. to Concordia and N. to San Tome. The principal exports are timber, cereals, mate, sugar, tobacco, hides, jerked beef, fruit and quebracho.