Rio Negro

Introduction

The Rio Negro, literally Black River, is Patagonia's most important watercourse by discharge, basin size and riverside population. It forms where the Limay and Neuquen rivers, both fed by the eastern Andes, meet on the provincial border, then runs 635 kilometres south-east across dry steppe to the Atlantic near El Condor, 30 kilometres below Viedma; measured from the Limay's source the whole system reaches 1,252 kilometres, draining some 132,000 square kilometres. The name translates the Mapuche Curu Leuvu, though the water is dark green rather than black, and an older name, River of Willows, came from the weeping willows lining its lower banks. It sustains Argentina's fruit industry: Rio Negro Province grows about 70 percent of the country's pears and 72 percent of its apples, and nearly half the Southern Hemisphere's pears, with orchards concentrated in the Alto Valle and around Choele Choel in the middle valley. Its lower 400 kilometres are navigable and small dams generate power. In 1604 Spanish explorers pushed inland along it seeking the mythical City of the Caesars, and during the Conquest of the Desert in the late 1870s it briefly marked the line between settler territory and indigenous lands. In Viedma today, the simple pleasure is a riverbank walk facing Carmen de Patagones across the water, or a trip to El Condor where the river meets the sea.

✨ Highlights

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