San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca city, and there is a considerable production of wine. Other local production includes preserves and handwoven ponchos. Cotton and cattle are important economically, as well as mining at the "Farallón Negro", "Bajo de la Alumbrera" and "Capillitas" mines where gold, silver, copper and tin. San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca () is a city in northwestern Argentina and capital of Catamarca Province, on the Río Valle River, at the feet of the Cerro Ambato. The city name is normally shortened as Catamarca. The city of , located above sea level, has 159,000 inhabitants (),
San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca founded until 1683, by Fernando de Mendoza y Mate de Luna. "Catamarca" comes from Quechua meaning "fortress on the slope". The city, which had only 8,000 inhabitants in 1882 and was reached by a railway line in 1888, grew very slowly, and the region remained poor even in the middle of the 20th century. This situation was exacerbated by nepotism on the part of the ruling Saadi family, before they lost political power in the 1990s. In spite of this, the province remains still politically unstable, and a large part of its population lives in precarious conditions. The warm semi-arid