Catamarca Province in the context of La Rioja Province (Argentina)

The Diaguita people are a group of South American Indigenous people native to the Chilean Norte Chico and the Argentine Northwest. Western or Chilean Diaguitas lived mainly in the Transverse Valleys that incise semi-arid mountains. Eastern or Argentine Diaguitas lived in the provinces of La Rioja and Catamarca and part of the provinces of Salta, San Juan and Tucumán. The term Diaguita was first applied to peoples and archaeological cultures by Ricardo E. Latcham in the early 20th century.

Ancient Diaguitas were not a unified people; the language or dialects used by them seems to have varied from valley to valley and they were politically fragmented into several chiefdoms. Coastal and inland Chilean Diaguitas traded, as evidenced by the archaeological findings of mollusc shells in the upper courses of Andean valleys.

Salta (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈsalta]) is a province of Argentina, located in the northwest of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the east clockwise Formosa, Chaco, Santiago del Estero, Tucumán and Catamarca. It also surrounds Jujuy. To the north it borders Bolivia and Paraguay and to the west lies Chile.

Córdoba (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkoɾðoβa]) is a province of Argentina, located in the center of the country. Its neighboring provinces are (clockwise from the north) Santiago del Estero, Santa Fe, Buenos Aires, La Pampa, San Luis, La Rioja, and Catamarca. Together with Santa Fe and Entre Ríos, the province is part of the economic and political association known as the Center Region.

Córdoba is the second-most populous Argentine province, with 3,978,984 inhabitants, and the fifth by size, at about 165,321 km (63,831 sq mi). Almost 41% of its inhabitants reside in the capital city, Córdoba, and its surroundings, making it the second most populous metro area in Argentina.

Santiago del Estero (Spanish pronunciation: [sanˈtjaɣo ðel esˈteɾo]), also known simply as Santiago, is a province in the north of Argentina. Neighboring provinces, clockwise from the north, are Salta, Chaco, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Catamarca and Tucumán.

The Argentine Northwest (Spanish: Noroeste argentino, NOA) is a geographic and historical region of Argentina comprising the provinces of Catamarca, Jujuy, La Rioja, Salta, Santiago del Estero and Tucumán. It borders Bolivia to the north, Chile to the west, the Northeast region to the east, the Center region to the south, and the Cuyo region to the southwest.

The region extends primarily over the Andes Mountains and their adjacent valleys, encompassing a diverse range of landscapes. The region's main geographic features are the Puna, the Calchaquí Valleys, the Yungas, and the Argentine portion of the Chaco Plains. Major rivers in the region include the Bermejo River, the Salí-Dulce River, and the Pilcomayo River.

The Atacama Region (Spanish: Región de Atacama, pronounced [ataˈkama]) is one of Chile's 16 first order administrative divisions. It comprises three provinces: Chañaral, Copiapó and Huasco. It is bordered to the north by Antofagasta, to the south by Coquimbo, to the east by the provinces of Catamarca, La Rioja and San Juan of Argentina, and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. The regional capital Copiapó is located 806 km (501 mi) north of the country's capital of Santiago. The region occupies the southern portion of the Atacama Desert, the rest of the desert is mainly distributed among the other regions of Norte Grande. As a generalization south of Copiapó River the region is mostly semi-arid and north of it is a true desert. The inland area in the north also differs from the southern part by hosting active volcanoes part of the Central Volcanic Zone of Andes.

The region has a long tradition of mining that features a silver rush from 1832 to 1850 and a strong development of iron mining from 1952 to 1966. Besides silver and iron the region also hosts valuable reserves of gold, copper and lithium. Agriculture in the region is mainly restricted to the valleys of Copiapó and Huasco where irrigation is aided by the dams of Lautaro and Santa Juana respectively. Crops cultivated include table grapes, olives, alfalfa and pisco grapes.

Tucumán (Spanish pronunciation: [tukuˈman]) is the most densely populated, and the second-smallest by land area, of the provinces of Argentina.

Located in the northwest of the country, the province has the capital of San Miguel de Tucumán, often shortened to Tucumán. Neighboring provinces are, clockwise from the north: Salta, Santiago del Estero and Catamarca. It is nicknamed El Jardín de la República (The Garden of the Republic), as it is a highly productive agricultural area.

La Rioja (Spanish pronunciation: [la ˈrjoxa]), officially Province of La Rioja is a province of Argentina located in the west of the country. The landscape of the province consists of a series of arid to semi-arid mountain ranges and agricultural valleys in between. It is in one of these valleys that the capital of the province, the city of La Rioja, lies. Neighboring provinces are, from the north clockwise, Catamarca, Córdoba, San Luis and San Juan. The Triassic sauropodomorph dinosaur Riojasaurus is named after the province.