Río Negro (
Spanish for "black river") is a river in the
Chaco Province in
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
. It crosses the
Chaco National Park
The Chaco National Park ( es, Parque Nacional Chaco) is a national park of Argentina, located in the province of Chaco. It has an area of 150 km2. It was created in 1954 in order to protect a sample of the Eastern Chaco, composed mainly of ...
and flows southeast. Near its mouth it flows by the cities of
Puerto Tirol
Puerto Tirol is a town in Chaco Province, Argentina. It is the head town of the Libertad Department.
The town was founded on August 6, 1888. The name refers to the origin of the initial settlers, who came from the Southern part of the Austro-Hu ...
,
Resistencia, and
Barranqueras
Barranqueras is a city in the southeast of the province of Chaco, Argentina, on a small tributary river on the right-hand-side (western) shore of the Paraná River, only 7 km from the provincial capital Resistencia and within its metropoli ...
, where it finally reaches
Barranqueras River, an arm of the
Paraná River
The Paraná River ( es, Río Paraná, links=no , pt, Rio Paraná, gn, Ysyry Parana) is a river in south-central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina for some ."Parana River". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Br ...
.
The river has changed its course over the flatlands several times over the years, leaving
wetland
A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...
s,
meander
A meander is one of a series of regular sinuous curves in the channel of a river or other watercourse. It is produced as a watercourse erodes the sediments of an outer, concave bank ( cut bank) and deposits sediments on an inner, convex bank ...
s and lagoons. This took place because of three different factors; frequent droughts, accumulation of sediment, and human-made deviations of the riverbed. Sections of the river are currently contaminated by industrial waste, mainly from the leather tanning industry.
The ''Río Negro'' is of historical importance to Resistencia, capital of Chaco Province, since most immigrants that populated Chaco reached the city in boats travelling up-river. On February 2 every year, the Festival of the Canoes and Boats is celebrated, commemorating the day of the arrival of the first steamboat that brought
Friulian pioneers to the province.
See also
*
List of rivers of Argentina
References
Rivers of Argentina
Rivers of Chaco Province
Tributaries of the Paraná River
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