Chaco

Chaco. Northeastern province of Argentina, covering 100,000 sq km and containing a population of 1,055,259 in 2010, including about 25,000 Ukrainians. The climate is subtropical. Most of the population is occupied in farming—raising cotton, sugarcane, corn, and sunflowers—and animal husbandry. Ukrainians, mostly from Volhynia and Polisia, began to settle in Chaco after the First World War. The Ukrainians live for the most part in the cities and suburbs: in Presidencia Roque Sáenz Peña, where there is the Ukrainian Catholic church has a parish and a monastery of the Sister Servants of Mary Immaculate; in Las Breñas, where the Ukrainian Orthodox church has a parish; in San Bernardo, where the Ukrainian community has organized the credit union Vidrodzhennia (associated with the Vidrodzhennia society); and in other cities.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]