San Salvador de Jujuy


San Salvador de Jujuy, commonly known as Jujuy and locally often referred to as San Salvador, is the capital and largest city of Jujuy Province in northwest Argentina. Also, it is the seat of the Doctor Manuel Belgrano Department. It lies near the southern end of the Humahuaca Canyon where wooded hills meet the lowlands.
Its population at the was 237,751 inhabitants. If its suburbs are included, this figure rises to around 300,000. The current mayor is Raúl Jorge.

City information

The city lies on National Route 9 that connects La Quiaca with Salta, and it is from Buenos Aires. Tourist destinations not far from the city are Tilcara, Humahuaca, and the Calilegua National Park.
Jujuy is located near the Andes, at the junction of the Xibi Xibi River and the Río Grande de Jujuy, 1,238 meters above sea level. The weather is humid during the summer and dry and cold during the winter. Temperatures vary widely between day and night.
The city is the provincial government, financial and cultural centre. Most administrative offices related to economic activities that take place in other parts of the province are located here; these activities include petroleum extraction and pre-processing, sugarcane and sugar industry, tobacco, steel, citrus, and fruit and vegetable production for local consumption.
The city has a colonial city centre including the Cabildo, the cathedral, and colorful Andean carnivals.
The Gobernador Horacio Guzmán International Airport at coordinates, is southeast of the city and has regular flights to Buenos Aires.

History

In late 1535 Jujuy was the site of a confrontation between a party of Diego de Almagro's expedition to Chile and local indigenous men. As the expedition's forces were concentrated in Tupiza a small party was sent to forage to Jujuy, a few expeditionaries were then killed which prompted Diego de Almagro to dispatch a 80-men strong punitive expedition that dislodged hostile forces that had fortified in a pucará in the Jujuy area.
After previous attempts in 1565 and 1592, the current city was founded as San Salvador de Velazco en el Valle de Jujuy on April 19, 1593, by Francisco de Argañarás y Murguía. The settlement initially developed as a strategic site on the mule trade route between San Miguel de Tucumán and the silver mines in Potosí, Bolivia.
Reaching its peak importance during the colonial period, San Salvador de Jujuy declined to the status of a remote provincial capital after the Argentine Declaration of Independence in 1816. The town became the capital of Jujuy Province when the latter separated from Salta Province in 1834. The 1863 Jujuy earthquake leveled the town, and it recovered slowly in the following decades. Jujuy began to grow following the arrival of the Northern Central Railway in 1900. Its first institution of higher learning, the Economic Sciences Institute, was established in 1959, and was incorporated into the new National University of Jujuy in 1973. The city was the location of a number of Argentine films, including Veronico Cruz and Una estrella y dos cafés. The city's impoverished Lower Azopardo neighborhood would later give rise to Milagro Sala's Indigenist Tupac Amaru Neighborhood Association.

Climate

Jujuy has a humid subtropical climate, mainly because of the altitude. Summers bring warm days at and nights at with frequent thunderstorms. The rest of the year is sunny, with temperatures at about during the day and at night, crisp, dry winters with warm days of and cold nights at, and sunny springs with warm days at and cool nights at. During heat waves, temperatures can sometimes reach but these are not frequent and nights always bring significant cooling, as opposed to many low-lying areas in Northern Argentina. During the winter, the record low has fallen to. Precipitation is about, which falls in the form of thunderstorms during the warmest months. The highest temperature recorded was on October 16, 2014 while the lowest temperature recorded was on August 14, 1978.

Notable people