Catamarca Province house in Catamarca, first with Arnoldo Castillo (1991–1999), then with his son Oscar Castillo (1999–2003), and now with the present governor, Eduardo Brizuela del Moral. The province is divided into sixteen departments (). Department (Capital) Catamarca Province Catamarca () is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. The province had a population of 334,568 as per the , and covers an area of 102,602 km. Its literacy rate is 95.5%. Neighboring provinces are (clockwise, from the north): Salta, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, Córdoba, and La Rioja. To the west it borders the country of Chile. The
Tobacco industry in Argentina are concentrated in the north of the country. The provinces of Jujuy and Salta (in the north-west), and Misiones (in the north-eastern Mesopotamia), are the leading ones, with over 45,000 tonnes/year each. The other tobacco-producing provinces are Tucumán, Corrientes, Chaco and Catamarca. Tobacco plays an important role in the economy of the producing areas, which are comparatively poor provinces. The Argentine tobacco industry employs 500,000 people, about half of them directly involved in the planting and harvesting, only about 2% in the manufacturing of the derived products, and the rest in distribution and sales. Therefore, despite the fact that the