🇦🇷 Argentina · Litoral
Ituzaingó is the Corrientes city that grew to the rhythm of two great forces: the Paraná river and the Yacyretá hydroelectric dam, the largest binational project between Argentina and Paraguay. It's the Argentine base of the hydroelectric complex, and along the reservoir there now stretch more than 15 kilometers of authorized beaches with nine beach clubs (source: Ituzaingó town hall), which has made it one of the most popular freshwater bathing destinations in northeastern Argentina.
But Ituzaingó is also, and increasingly, the northern gateway to Iberá National Park: the Portal Cambyretá lets you explore the marshes just 15 km from the city, with trails, native wildlife watching (marsh deer, capybaras, caimans, howler monkeys and more than 350 bird species) and a campground. Add to that a strong tradition of sport fishing on the Paraná, with species such as dorado, surubí and manguruyú, and a calendar of festivals that includes Carnival, the Fiesta Nacional de la Yerra y la Doma Correntina and the catch-and-release surubí fishing contest.
This page brings together information verified against the official sources of the Ituzaingó town hall, the Corrientes Ministry of Tourism and the Yacyretá Binational Entity (EBY): what to see and do, how and when to visit the dam, how to reach the Portal Cambyretá, where to stay and eat, and practical details for planning the visit.
Ituzaingó was founded on August 12, 1864 by decree of the governor of Corrientes, Manuel Ignacio Lagraña, following a petition from the landowner Bernardino Valle to create a town on the Paraná shore, at the spot known as Tranquera de San José/Loreto. The name honors the Battle of Ituzaingó (February 20, 1827), fought in the war against the Empire of Brazil. Through the 20th century the city lived off port, ranching and forestry activity, until in 1973 Argentina and Paraguay signed the Yacyretá Treaty, which launched the binational hydroelectric project whose works began in 1983 and whose first turbine came on line on September 2, 1994. Building the dam meant a long process of relocating whole neighborhoods of the city, which ran from 1982 to 2011, when the filling of the reservoir to its final level of 83 m above sea level was completed. The full story is on our history page.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
There are two places called Ituzaingó in Argentina, and they're often confused. One is a district of Greater Buenos Aires, created in 1994 when the old Morón district was split; it's a residential suburb, with no notable tourist attractions beyond its town center and its trees. The other — the one this guide describes — is the city of Ituzaingó, in Corrientes province: the seat of the department of the same name, on the Paraná river, the Argentine base of the Yacyretá hydroelectric dam and one of the access portals to Iberá National Park. Both carry the same name for the same reason — a tribute to the Battle of Ituzaingó in 1827 — but they are completely different places, more than 900 km apart.
Before the city was founded, the region was part of the Guaraní territory of the Litoral, with a later presence of Jesuit estancias in the area (Ituzaingó department has the San Carlos Jesuit ruins nearby, according to the Corrientes Ministry of Tourism). The area where the town would be founded was known as Tranquera de Loreto or Tranquera de San José, on the Paraná shore.
In 1863, the landowners Bernardino Valle, Juan Rivera and Francisco López submitted a petition to the government of Corrientes province asking for the creation of a town on the left bank of the Paraná river, in the area known as Tranquera de Loreto. On February 24, 1864, Bernardino Valle presented a bill to the Corrientes legislature asking that, in what was then the Department of San Miguel, on the Paraná shore, near the Tranquera de San José settlement, a town be founded with the name Ituzaingó.
The governor of Corrientes at the time was Manuel Ignacio Lagraña (in office between 1862 and 1865), under whose administration the law creating Ituzaingó was passed, formalized by decree on August 12, 1864 — the date now commemorated as the city's founding anniversary. This is confirmed by the Ituzaingó town hall itself, which dedicates its Historical Museum to Governor Lagraña "in homage... under whose administration the law creating Ituzaingó was passed" (source: ituzaingo.gob.ar/turismo/museo-de-campo).
The new town's name honored the Battle of Ituzaingó, fought on February 20, 1827 in the fields of the Banda Oriental (present-day Uruguay), during the war against the Empire of Brazil — the same episode that gives its name to the Buenos Aires district of the same name.
Ituzaingó's early years were marked by port activity on the Paraná — the so-called Puerto Mamá, beside which the Casa Puerto de Bernardino Valle still stands, an 1864 building that served as a trading house (source: Ituzaingó town hall) — and by ranching and the estancias of inland Corrientes, among them Estancia Santa Tecla, whose objects are kept in the municipal Historical Museum.
As the town hall itself describes it, Ituzaingó society was formed by the mixing of indigenous communities, the Jesuit-Guaraní imprint and successive waves of settlement in the 19th and 20th centuries: a "frontier society", with popular religiosity, ranching traditions, chamamé and beliefs that combine Catholic faith with regional myths such as the payé (source: ituzaingo.gob.ar/historia). The Gobernador Lagraña Historical Museum, founded in 1988, and the Anthropological Museum, founded in 2004, today document both layers of that history: the rural and institutional life of the town, and the archaeological traces of the Guaraní communities who lived in the Yacyretá region before the arrival of the white man.
The possibility of using the old Apipé Rapids (a stretch of fast water on the Paraná river, now flooded by the reservoir) to generate hydroelectric power was first raised in 1903, at the 9th International Navigation Congress. In 1926 the governments of Argentina and Paraguay signed a protocol on the navigability of the Upper Paraná and the use of its falls; in 1958 they created a Joint Technical Commission which, in 1966, confirmed that the project was technically and economically viable.
On December 3, 1973 the two countries signed the Yacyretá Treaty, which gave rise to the Yacyretá Binational Entity (EBY) — made up of ANDE (Paraguay) and EBISA (Argentina) — and set a seven-year deadline to bring the first generating unit into service (source: EBY, eby.org.ar/nuestra-historia). Construction work on the dam began on December 3, 1983, a week before president-elect Raúl Alfonsín took office. In parallel, from 1982, an extensive process began of relocating the population affected by the future reservoir: five urban, peri-urban and rural housing complexes were built, with homes, schools, health centers and cultural and commercial spaces, a process that ran until 2011.
On September 2, 1994 the Yacyretá hydroelectric power station was inaugurated with the start-up of its first turbine, beginning commercial power generation at a level of 76 meters above sea level. The second turbine came on line on November 8 that same year, and through 1995 turbines 3 to 6 were added. By 1997, 98.8% of the civil and electromechanical engineering works were complete.
For years the station ran at an intermediate level, below its original design, which held back its maximum output. On January 6, 2005 Argentina and Paraguay signed the Yacyretá Completion Plan, which set the goal of reaching the final level of 83 m above sea level, as well as building new housing, road accesses, bridges and hospitals in Misiones and Paraguay. EBY completed the filling of the reservoir to that final level in 2011, allowing all 20 turbines to run at their design output: 3,200 MW installed, with a reservoir surface of 1,600 km² and 342 km of length along the river's course (source: EBY, eby.org.ar/nuestra-historia and eby.gov.py/datos-tecnicos). In 2014 the station hit a record for generation, with 20,314 GWh produced over the year.
For the city of Ituzaingó, this process meant a radical transformation: whole neighborhoods were rebuilt in new locations, the old course of the Paraná and the Apipé Rapids were left under the reservoir's water, and the local economy came to revolve, in large part, around the works themselves and the tourism generated by the new expanse of water.
Corrientes province today promotes Ituzaingó as the "Capital of Energy" (source: Corrientes Ministry of Tourism, turismo.corrientes.gob.ar), a direct reference to its role as the Argentine base of the Yacyretá complex. On the same reservoir that transformed the city, an intense freshwater beach tourism scene has developed in recent decades: the city now has more than 15 km of authorized shoreline and nine equipped beach clubs (source: Ituzaingó town hall).
In parallel, Ituzaingó established itself as one of the access portals to Iberá National Park through the Portal Norte Cambyretá, and in 2021 two new environmental interpretation spaces opened: the Iberá Bird Center and the Interpretation Center for the Litoral Nature Corridor, which brings together the six provinces of the Argentine Litoral. According to the 2022 national census, the city has 27,417 inhabitants (source: Corrientes Provincial Institute of Statistics and Data Science), while the whole department — which includes the Apipé islands — comes to 38,787 inhabitants (source: INDEC).
The name "Yacyretá" means, in Guaraní, "place where the moon shines" (source: EBY, eby.org.ar/nuestra-historia).
There are two Ituzaingós in Argentina — this Corrientes city and a district of Greater Buenos Aires — and both owe their name to the same battle of 1827, but they have no other connection.
The Yacyretá hydroelectric power station has 20 Kaplan turbines with a runner diameter of 9.5 meters, and each can generate up to 160 MW of maximum output (source: EBY, eby.gov.py/datos-tecnicos).
The municipal Historical Museum holds a copy of Ituzaingó's founding decree, ornaments from the town's first church and objects that may date from the period of the War of the Triple Alliance (source: Ituzaingó town hall).
From the Portal Cambyretá, only 15 km from the city, you can reach one of the largest wetlands in the world, the Esteros del Iberá, with more than 350 recorded bird species.