1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Corrientes (province)

CORRIENTES, a north-eastern province of the Argentine Republic, and part of a region known as the Argentine Mesopotamia, bounded N. by Paraguay, N.E. by Misiones (territory), E. by Brazil, S. by Entre Rios, and W. by Santa Fé and the Chaco. Pop. (1895) 239,618; (1904 estimate) 299,479; area, 32,580 sq. m. Nearly one-third of the province is covered by swamps and lagoons, or is so little above their level as to be practically unfit for permanent settlement unless drained. The Iberá lagoon (c. 8500 sq. m., according to the Argentine Year Book for 1905–1906) includes a large part of the central and north-eastern departments, and the Maloya lagoon covers a large part of the north-western departments. Several streams flowing into the Paraná and Uruguay have their sources in these lagoons, the Iberá sending its waters in both directions. The southern districts of the province, however, are high and rolling, similar to the neighbouring departments of Entre Rios, and are admirably adapted to grazing and agriculture. The north-eastern corner is also high, but it is broken by ranges of hills and is heavily forested, like the adjacent territory of Misiones. The climate on the higher plains is sub-tropical, but in the northern swamps it is essentially tropical. Corrientes is the hottest province of Argentina, notwithstanding its large area of water and forest. The exports include cattle and horses, jerked beef, hides, timber and firewood, cereals and fruit. The principal towns are Corrientes, the capital; Goya, a flourishing agricultural town (1906 estimate, 7000) on a side channel of the Paraná, 150 m. S. of Corrientes, the seat of a modern normal school and the market-town of a prosperous district; Bella Vista (pop. 1906 estimate, 3000), prettily situated on the Paraná, 80 m. S. of Corrientes, the commercial centre of a large district; Esquina (pop. 1906 estimate, 3000) on the Paraná at the mouth of the Corrientes river, 86 m. S. of Goya, which exports timber and firewood from the neighbouring forest of Payubre; Monte Caseros (pop. 1906 estimate, 4000) on the Uruguay river, from which cattle are shipped to Brazil, the eastern terminus of the Argentine North-Eastern railway (which crosses the province in a N.W. direction to Corrientes), and a station on the East Argentine railway (which runs northward to Paso de Los Libres, opposite Uruguayana, Brazil and to San Tomé, and southward to a junction with the Entre Rios railways). A considerable district on the upper Uruguay was once occupied by prosperous Jesuit missions, all of which fell into decay and ruins after the expulsion of that order from the Spanish possessions in 1767. The population of the province is composed very largely of Indian and mixed races, and Guarani is still the language of the country people.