San Miguel de Tucumán, city in northwestern Argentina, capital of Tucumán Province, on the Río Salí. The city is the commercial center of an irrigated area that produces large quantities of sugarcane, rice, tobacco, and fruit. The National University of Tucumán (1914) and the Saint Thomas Aquinas University of the North (1965) are in the city. Founded in 1565, the city was moved to the present site in 1685. In 1812, during the war of independence from Spain, the Argentine general Manuel Belgrano defeated the Spanish royalist forces in the city. Four years later, Argentine independence was declared in the city by the Constituent Assembly. The meeting place of the assembly, Independence House, has been preserved as a national shrine. Population (1991) 470,809.
