The city was built by the Italian-Argentine Colonization Company (Spanish: Compañía Italo-Argentina de Colonización), which purchased 5,000 hectares for urban development from the estate of Manuel Zorrilla.

The city celebrates the Provincial Grape Harvest Festival annually and also hosts the National Comahue Fair biennially.

"[2] During the expansion of the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway (Spanish: Ferrocarril del Sur) to the lands conquered during the Desert Campaign, the new route passed by the area because it was flat.

[1] Zorrilla officially received the lands in 1895, with the condition that he would have to cede, free of charge, the sections where the tracks of the Ferrocarril del Sur would be built.

[3] In 1898 engineer César Cipolletti was hired by the Argentine government to analyze the Neuquén, Limay, Negro and Colorado rivers, to construct reservoirs to prevent floods, and to study the feasibility of building irrigation systems.

To attract Italian investors, he shared his ideas that same year at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, but he died in 1908 while returning to Argentina.

[7] The purchased land received irrigation from a branch of the main channel of the Nequén levee and was near Chichinales and the station Km.

The Bank of Rome gave the settlement a loan of 5 million lire, in spite of Benito Mussolini's plan to use that money to support Italian workers in Italy.

[14] In 1925, the settlers worked every Sunday for a month to build a 1.5 km (0.93 mi) path; they later built a church and a graveyard at the end of it.

[8] In 1927, the governor of Río Negro, León Quaglia, wrote a letter to Bonoli, requesting the creation of a government-directed development committee for the colony.

Bonoli opposed the government's decision to intervene in the administration of the lands, pointing out the progress that the company had already made with the urban development, and stated that if a committee was formed the company could "consider its mission accomplished" and that the current settlers could suffer a "lamentable delay" in the construction of the projected developments.

[17] In December 1930, the government of Río Negro created the municipality of Villa Regina, dissolving the Italian-Argentine Colonization Company.

[18] In 1937, an independent neo-fascist organization whose influence covered the Upper Río Negro valley area, called the Patagonic Nationalist Youth (Spanish: Juventud Nacionalista Patagónica) appeared in Villa Regina.

Meanwhile, the Patagonic Youth were opposed by the Democráticos, who represented a major part of the population of Villa Regina, and by Acción Argentina, an organization favorable to the Allied Forces.

[19] After rival public demonstrations between the Patagonic Youth and Acción Argentina ended in riots in 1943 and 1944, triggering police repression, they were dismantled.

[22] Up until the 1960s, the economic activities of Villa Regina were regulated by the Chamber of Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce of the Upper Valley (Spanish: Cámara de Agricultura, Industria y Comercio del Alto Valle), or the CAIC, the organization that had also focused on the rest of the cities of the Upper Valley of Río Negro since 1931.

The 45-day event, organized by the Chamber, was intended to showcase the economical potential of the Comahue Region, as well as to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the founding of Villa Regina.

[25] During the Argentine transition from the military junta of the National Reorganization Process to a democratic government, the first constitutional municipal convention took place on May 15, 1987.

The road, named after former Governor of Río Negro "Gobernador Don Marío José Franco", opened the access to 4,500 hectares of land to be urbanized by the municipal government.

Next to the road, the "Via Cristi" pedestrian path is set to be inaugurated during Easter in 2014, including the unveiling of a 20 metres (66 ft) statue of Christ on top of the northern hill.

[27] Villa Regina lies 250 meters (820 feet) above sea level and is located along the Upper Río Negro (Black River) valley.

[29] The flora is typical of the Patagonian steppe and includes small bushes with scarce spiny foliage like larrea, alpataco and atriplex lampa.

[32] Online meteorological data from a personal weather station In 1930, after the 5,000 hectares had been developed and colonized, Colonia Regina had an estimated population of 3,000.

[40] As the largest city in the area, Villa Regina is considered the capital of the Eastern Upper Río Negro Valley micro-region, which includes the rural municipalities of Chichinales, General Enrique Godoy, Ingeniero Luis A. Huergo and Mainqué.

[46] In 2010, it was inaugurated as a campus of the National University of Río Negro, which is focused on careers related to business management, technology and engineering.

[47] The city is the seat of the eastern Upper Río Negro Valley "Zone II" of elementary education.

[49] The Indio Comahue Monument, erected on an overlook on the northern hill, is considered the symbol of the town and is also depicted in the municipal coat of arms.