It is nicknamed El Jardín de la República (The Garden of the Republic), as it is a highly productive agricultural area.

The aborigines of the region presented a strong resistance to the Spanish, who decided to move the defeated tribes toward Buenos Aires.

Tucumán, with 20,000 inhabitants by that time, suffered also from the British imports from the newly opened customs of Buenos Aires, no longer under the monopoly of the Spanish Crown.

Following the failure of Argentina's first independence-era government, the Directorio, Governor Bernabé Aráoz on March 22, 1820, proclaimed the creation of the Federal Republic of Tucumán.

The beginning of the 20th century, with the customs restrictions and the arrival of the railway, brought prosperous economic times for the province and its sugarcane production.

Numerous landmarks were built, such as Ninth of July Park and the Tucumán Government Palace, and a daily newspaper founded in 1912, La Gaceta, became the most circulated Argentine daily outside Buenos Aires, but the sugar price crisis of the 1960s and President Juan Carlos Onganía's order to have 11 large state-owned sugar mills closed in 1966, hit Tucumán's economy hard, and ushered in an era of instability for the province.

The decree led to Operation Independence, an official military campaign at least as brutal on local magistrates, lawmakers, and faculty as it was on its stated target, the ERP.

Violence did not fully abate until the appointment of General Antonio Domingo Bussi, the operation's commander, as governor at the behest of the dictatorship that deposed Perón in 1976.

Efficient as well as ruthless, Bussi oversaw the completion of several stalled public works, but also presided over some of the worst human rights abuses during that painful 1976-77 period.

José Alperovich, elected governor in 2003, has presided over record investment in public works while reaping criticism for attempts to eliminate term limits for his office.

The east is associated with the Gran Chaco flat lands, while the west presents a mixture of the Sierras of the Pampas to the south and the canyons of the Argentine Northwest to the north.

The climate quickly becomes decidedly temperate with altitude, supporting different kinds of forest which even receive some snow every winter, finally reaching high-altitude grasslands with cool, windy weather year-round.

[12] In 2012, the per capita income of the province is of 8,000 dollars Known internationally for its prodigious sugarcane (with 2,300 km2, and the sugar production, 60% of the country's), Tucumán's economy is quite diversified, and agriculture accounts for about 7% of output.

After the sugar crisis of the 1960s, Tucumán tried to diversify its crops, and now cultivates, among others, lemons (world first producer), strawberries, kiwifruit, beans, banana, maize, alfalfa, and soybeans.

The Panamerican Highway (Route 9) crosses San Miguel de Tucumán, and connects it with Santiago del Estero and Buenos Aires.

The Teniente General Benjamín Matienzo International Airport has regular flights to Buenos Aires, Lima, Santiago, Cordoba and São Paulo, and receives almost 800,000 passengers every year.