Resistencia

The Chaco side of the Paraná was the land of Guaycuru peoples who lived by hunting and fishing, among them the Toba, now known as the Qom, and the Abipón. Corrientes was founded across the river in 1588, but resistance to missionaries and settlers kept Europeans off this bank for almost three more centuries. A settlement existed by 1865, and on 27 January 1878 Resistencia was formally created as the capital of the national territory of the Chaco, with a grid laid out by the surveyor Arturo Seelstrang.

Settlement was planned under the national immigration law. The first families came from northern Italy, above all from Friuli, Trento and the Veneto, and from Austrian Tyrol; the arrival of the Friulians is remembered on 2 February, and the first city council was made up entirely of Italians. Farming and trade through the port of Barranqueras drove growth, while Indigenous communities were pushed off their lands; in 1924 police and ranchers killed hundreds of Qom and Mocoví people at Napalpí, a rural village in the Chaco.

In 1953 the territory became a province and Resistencia its capital. The airport followed in the 1950s and 1960s, and in 1973 the General Belgrano Bridge joined the city to Corrientes, forming one urban area across the river. From the 1960s the idea of filling the streets with sculpture took hold, and the biennial contest begun in 1988 has made it the city's defining identity.

Resistencia calls itself the city of sculptures, and Congress made the title official in 2006. More than 600 works stand in its streets, squares and parks — busts, abstract forms in marble, wood and steel, and pieces left by visiting artists — with some public monuments dating back to the 1920s. Every two years in July the Bienal Internacional de Escultura brings sculptors from around the world to carve in the open air beside the Negro River, with crowds watching the work take shape over a week. The contest, supported by UNESCO since 1997, grew out of earlier national wood-carving competitions.

The cultural house El Fogón de los Arrieros was for decades the meeting place of the city's painters, writers and musicians, and remains a reference for local art. The city has an unusual number of museums for its size, including a Museum of Memory in a building that served as a clandestine detention centre during the dictatorship.

Two heritages shape local identity. Italian descent is celebrated by associations such as the Fogón Friulano, and Resistencia is twinned with Udine and Trento. The Qom are the largest Indigenous people in the city, alongside Wichí and Mocoví communities. Chamamé and folk music are part of every celebration, and tereré is shared at all hours.

Greater Resistencia, which takes in Barranqueras and neighbouring towns, had about 410,000 people in the 2022 census, and with Corrientes across the river it forms a conurbation of more than 800,000. The city has long had the largest municipal council in the province, as its only municipality of over 100,000.

The economy began with farming and trade and has moved towards services: provincial government, health care, commerce and education, with the National University of the Northeast shared with Corrientes. The city's road, rail, air and river links make it a distribution centre for the northeast, and the port of Barranqueras handles cargo on the Paraná. A 2008 household survey placed Resistencia among the poorest cities in the country.

The heat sets the rhythm. Offices and shops start early and close through the afternoon siesta, and life returns in the evening to Parque 2 de Febrero, the riverside promenade and the pedestrian streets. Around twenty lagoons survive inside the metropolitan area, several of them now ringed by parks.

Resistencia eats like the rest of the Guaraní northeast. Chipá, small cheese breads made with cassava starch, are sold by vendors everywhere; sopa paraguaya, a dense cornbread with cheese and onion, and chipá guazú, made with fresh maize, are served with grilled meat; and mbeyú is a cassava-starch pancake. Mandioca, cassava, is boiled or fried as the usual side.

The Paraná and its tributaries supply the prized river fish: surubí, a large catfish, grilled or stewed, and pacú and dorado cooked over coals. Asado is the centre of family gatherings, and the province's cattle and the meat of the wider Chaco reach the grills at weekends.

Tereré, yerba mate with iced water and often with herbs, is the drink of the long summer, and hot mate takes over in the brief winter. The Italian roots of the founding families show in the pasta and pizza that are everyday food here as across Argentina.