SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO, a province of Argentina, bounded north by Salta and the Chaco territory, east by the Chaco and Santa Fe, south by Cordoba, and west by Catamarca, Tucuman and Salta. Area 53,451 sq•m.; pop. (1914) 261,678; (1934, estimate) 421,977, chiefly Christianized Indians. The sur face of the province is flat and low, chiefly open plains thinly covered with grass. There are forests in the west and north, extensive swamps along the river courses and large saline areas, especially in the south-west. The Salado (called Pasage, and Juramento in Salta) crosses the province from north-west to south-east and empties into the Parana, and the Dulce, or Sala dillo, which has its sources in the Sierra de Aconquija, crosses the province in the same general direction, and is lost in the great saline swamps of Porongbs, on the Cordoba frontier. The climate is extremely hot in the summer, the maximum temperature being 11 I° F (Mulhall) ; a minimum of 32° is occasionally experienced in the winter. There is an annual rainfall of 25 inches. Sugar, wheat, alfalfa, Indian corn, tobacco and hides are the principal products, and cotton, which was grown here under the Incas, is still produced. The province is traversed by the Tucuman exten
sion of the Buenos Aires and Rosario railway, by a line from Santa Fe to Tucuman, and by a branch of the Central Northern (Cordoba section) railway.
The provincial capital, SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO, IS on the left bank of the Rio Dulce, 745 m. N.W. of Buenos Aires, with which it is connected by rail. Pop. (1914) chiefly of Indian descent. The city stands on a level open plain, 52o ft. above sea level, and in the vicinity of large swamps (esteros) bordering the Rio Dulce, from which its name is derived. There are a number of interesting old buildings in the city—a Government house, several churches, a Jesuit college, a Franciscan convent and a girls' orphanage. The city was founded in 1553 by Francisco de Aguirre and was the first capital of the province of Tucuman, the earliest settled of the La Plata provinces.