🇦🇷 Argentina · The Northeast
Federación is the capital of thermal relaxation in the Argentine Northeast: a modern, leafy, quiet city on the shore of Lake Salto Grande, whose great magnet is its thermal complex, one of the most visited and most respected in the country. Thousands of people arrive every year to sink into its pools of warm mineral water, in a well-kept setting of gardens and greenery, to rest, unwind and switch off from the daily grind.
The city also has a history as singular as it is moving: the Federación you visit today is 'new'. The original city ended up under the waters of the reservoir formed by the binational Salto Grande dam in the 1970s, and its inhabitants had to move to a city built from scratch on higher ground. That epic relocation left a deep mark on local identity, and visitors can get to know it through monuments and museums.
This guide covers the essentials of Federación with a practical, warm eye: how to enjoy the thermal complex and the water park, what to do in the city and on the lakeshore, when to go, where to stay and eat, and how to combine it with other destinations on the Uruguay River. Federación is the ideal destination for a getaway of rest, health and wellbeing in the heart of the Northeast.
The original Federación was founded in the 19th century on the bank of the Uruguay River, in northeastern Entre Ríos. In the 1970s, the building of the binational Salto Grande dam (between Argentina and Uruguay) and the reservoir it created forced the city to be relocated entirely: old Federación was left submerged and a new city was built on higher ground, where the population moved at the end of the 1970s. Years later, on 24 November 1994, a borehole driven by the provincial government in search of thermal water —the first successful one in the Argentine Mesopotamia, with advice from YPF— brought hot water up from the Guaraní Aquifer at more than 800 meters deep; the thermal park opened in 1997 and turned Federación into a major hot-springs and tourism center. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The Mesopotamian province between the Paraná and the Uruguay: land of Charrúas and Minuanes, stronghold of the federalism of Urquiza —the victor of Caseros—, cradle of Argentina's Jewish and Swiss colonies, of hot springs, palm groves and the carnival of Gualeguaychú.
Read the history of Entre Ríos →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Few cities in the world can tell the story Federación tells: it's a single town founded three times, in three different places. And the thread starts with an illustrious surname: in 1777, commander Juan de San Martín —the father of the Liberator José de San Martín— founded the Mandisoví ranch and way station, a stop on the goods transport system between the towns of the Jesuit Missions and the port of Buenos Aires. That hamlet in northeastern Entre Ríos was the first direct ancestor of today's Federación.
The second chapter came seven decades later. From 20 March 1847, by order of governor Justo José de Urquiza, the settlement of Mandisoví was moved and refounded on the bank of the Uruguay River, with a new and politically loaded name: 'Pueblo de la Federación', in tribute to the federal cause that pitted federalists against unitarians and in which Entre Ríos was a leading player. For more than a century, that Federación grew as a typical Entre Ríos river town: with its main square, its church, its port on the river and a life tied to farming, forestry and cross-border trade with neighboring Uruguay. Generations of federaenses were born, lived and built their identity in that city by the river.
Nothing suggested that this city would also disappear. But in the middle of the 20th century, a major binational infrastructure project —the Salto Grande dam, on the Uruguay River, between Argentina and Uruguay— would set off a radical transformation of the territory. The reservoir that would form behind the dam was going to cover vast stretches of land and, among them, the city of Federación. The fate of a whole community would be sealed, once again, by a move: the third and the most painful.
The Salto Grande dam, a binational hydroelectric project built in the 1970s on the Uruguay River, was conceived to generate power and make use of the flow of the river shared by Argentina and Uruguay. But its reservoir meant flooding enormous areas, and the city of Federación fell inside the zone that would be covered by the water. The decision was unavoidable: the entire city had to be moved.
So began one of the most singular urban epics in Argentina. A new Federación was built on higher ground, a short distance away, with a new layout, its streets, its houses and its services. The new city was officially inaugurated on 25 March 1979 —a date that today gives its name to the main avenue— and the population was relocated in a process charged with emotion: families left behind the houses of a lifetime, their memories, their church, their landscape, to start again somewhere else. Old Federación was left under the waters of the reservoir, turned into a submerged city.
That move left a wound and, at the same time, an identity. The memory of old Federación —of what was lost, of what stayed under the water— became a central part of the soul of the new city, which keeps it alive in museums, monuments and stories. Federación is one of the very few Argentine cities moved in their entirety, and its history is a moving testimony to how progress and big infrastructure projects can transform the life of a community at the root. The new city, planned and modern, was born with nostalgia for its sunken predecessor.
The new Federación, born of the move, found an unexpected future under its own feet. In the early 1990s, the provincial government —under governor Mario Moine— launched a program to explore the thermal potential of the Entre Ríos subsoil, and Federación was chosen as one of the drilling points. With technical advice from YPF and an investment of around 1.2 million dollars, the ground under the city was drilled in search of hot water. On 24 November 1994, at a little over 800 meters deep, thermal water came up: drinkable, mineralized and at around 42-43 degrees, from the great Guaraní Aquifer, the same one that feeds the hot springs of Uruguay and Brazil. It was the first successful thermal borehole in the whole Argentine Mesopotamia.
Federación bet on the hot springs, and the result beat expectations. In 1997 the thermal park opened, the first in Entre Ríos, and over time it became one of the best known and most visited in Argentina. The city, previously known above all for the epic of its move, became a byword for relaxation, health and thermal wellbeing. Tourism brought hotels, restaurants, services and thousands of visitors, transforming the economy and the profile of Federación completely.
The hot springs were joined by the water park, the tourist use of Lake Salto Grande —with its beaches, its fishing and its boating— and an infrastructure built around rest. So the city that had been born out of a loss —that of old Federación under the water— was reborn thanks to a gift from the subsoil, the thermal waters. Today, Federación combines the emotional memory of its submerged past with the drive of a prosperous tourist destination, in one of the most remarkable stories of transformation and resilience in the Argentine Northeast.
The success of the thermal complex opened at the end of the 20th century transformed Federación completely and, with it, much of the province of Entre Ríos, which found in thermal water a powerful new tourism resource. The Federación model was a pioneer: after its 1994 find and the opening of its thermal park, other Entre Ríos towns —Concordia, Colón, Villa Elisa, Chajarí, Gualeguaychú, La Paz, Concepción del Uruguay, San José— drilled their own wells and developed thermal complexes, until Entre Ríos became Argentina's great hot-springs corridor.
Federación established itself as the head of that phenomenon. Its thermal park kept expanding services and facilities, adding pools, a water park with slides and water games, spa areas and a hotel and restaurant infrastructure built for visitors. The city organized its growth around health and wellbeing tourism, with tree-lined streets, green spaces and the waterfront on Lake Salto Grande as the natural complement to the hot springs.
Today, Federación takes in hundreds of thousands of tourists a year and ranks among the country's most popular thermal destinations, especially for weekend getaways, winter school holidays and family breaks. The city celebrates its thermal identity with events and festivals, and at the same time keeps alive the memory of old, submerged Federación. That double condition —the pain of the move and the rebirth through the waters— makes Federación an exemplary case of resilience and reinvention, a city that managed to turn a loss into a prosperous, well-known destination.