Corrientes is a province in northeast Argentina, in the Mesopotamia region. It is surrounded by (from the North, clockwise): Paraguay, the province of Misiones, Brazil, and the provinces of Entre Rios, Santa Fe and Chaco. The official languages are Spanish and Guarani.***************Before the arrival of the Spanish conquest, the Guaraníes lived in a big area that also covered most of the current province of Corrientes. The city of Corrientes was founded on April 3, 1588 by Juan Torres de Vera y Aragón as a mid-stop between Asunción and Buenos Aires; the city flourished thanks to the traffic of the route. Jesuits erected missions in the north of the province, where they thoroughly dedicated to the expansion of the faith. In the wars of inexpediency from Spain, Corrientes joined Artigas' Liga de los Pueblos Libres (1814–1820). The attack of Paraguayan forces to the province in 1865 marked the start of the War of the Triple Alliance. In 1819 the Universidad Nacional del Litoral was founded, to become in 1956 the Universidad Nacional del Nordeste.****************Culture in Corrientes has been primarily informed and influenced by its European roots,a example of this chamamé music and dance. Famous correntinos were independence hero General José de San Martín (born in 1778 in Yapeyú), and Juan Bautista Cabral (born in Saladas), who (according to popular legend) gave his life for the General in the Battle of San Lorenzo. Tourist destinations in the Corrientes Province include the Iberá Wetlands and the Mburucuyá National Park. On 28 September 2004, provincial Law No. 5598 declared Guaraní to be like an official language of Corrientes, alongside Spanish.*************Agriculture is one of the main activities in the province, centred in citrus, tobacco, rice, yerba mate, tea and cotton. The timber industry uses 1,400 km² of pine and eucalyptus forests. Bovine cattle has problems standing the heat and the low quality of the grass specially in the north of the province. For that reason, the Brangus breed is the most common in the area. In the south, different breeds can be found. 70,000 km² of the province's land are used for more than 4 million heads of cattle. Of the province net production, tobacco represents 45% of the gross income, food and derivates 30% and textiles 16%. On the Paraná River, near the city of Ituzaingó, the Yaciretá dam provides energy not only to the province, but to both Argentina and Paraguay.****************Gaucho (gaúcho in Portuguese) is a term commonly used to describe residents of the South American pampas, chacos or Patagonian grasslands, found principally in parts of Argentina, Uruguay, Magallanes Region in Chile and the state of Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil. The word gaucho could be described as a loose equivalent to the North American "cowboy". Like the North American word cowboy, Venezuelan or Colombian llanero, or Chilean huaso, or the Mexican vaquero, the term often connotes the 19th century more than the present day; then gauchos made up the majority of the rural pampas population, herding cattle and practicing agriculture as their main economic activities. There are several conflicting hypotheses of the origin of the term. It may derive from the Quechua huachu (orphan, vagabond) or from the Arabic chaucho (a type of whip used in herding animals). Other hypotheses abound. The first recorded uses of the term date from around the time of Argentine independence in 1816.