Dolavon ( Welsh: ''Dolafon'') is a small town in the

Patagonia Patagonia () is a geographical region that includes parts of Argentina and Chile at the southern end of South America. The region includes the southern section of the Andes mountain chain with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers ...

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

of Chubut, Argentina. It had a population of 2,929 according to the . It is located close to the Chubut River, about to the west of Gaiman. The name comes from Welsh ''dôl'' (meadow) and ''afon'' (river). Welsh immigrants began to settle in the area after their arrival in Patagonia in 1865. The Central Chubut Railway arrived in 1915, linking the settlement to

Trelew Trelew (, from "town" and the name of the founder, Lewis Jones) is a city in the eastern part of the Chubut Province of Argentina, 21km away from the coast. Located in Patagonia, the city is the largest and most populous in the low valley of the ...

, and the town was officially founded in 1919. Dolavon became a centre of wheat production using

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

canals to compensate for the arid climate. The old flour mill with its

water wheel A water wheel is a machine for converting the kinetic energy of flowing or falling water into useful forms of power, often in a watermill. A water wheel consists of a large wheel (usually constructed from wood or metal), with numerous b ...

is now a museum. According to plans announced in November 2006, Dolavon was to be the site of important energy generation facilities by mid-2008: a

combined cycle A combined cycle power plant is an assembly of heat engines that work in tandem from the same source of heat, converting it into mechanical energy. On land, when used to make electricity the most common type is called a combined cycle gas turb ...

power plant (with an output of between 330 and 465 MW) and a

wind farm A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...

(100 MW).

References

External links

Dolavon
at ''ArgentinaXplora'' * Populated places in Chubut Province Populated places established in 1919 Welsh settlement in Patagonia Cities in Argentina {{Chubut-geo-stub