a city in central Argentina; site of a university founded in 1613 a city in southern Spain; center of Moorish culture Spanish explorer who discovered Yucatan (1475-1526) the basic unit of money in Nicaragua; equal to 100 centavos
City (pop., 1999 est.: 1,275,585), the second largest in Argentina. It lies on the Primero River along the foothills of the Sierra de Córdoba. Founded in 1573, its location between the coast and the interior settlements favoured its early development. In 1599 Jesuits settled in the city and founded the country's first university (1613). Córdoba's growth was stimulated by the completion of rail connections with the east in 1869 and the San Roque Dam in 1866, which provides irrigation water for orchards and grain fields and hydroelectric power for the city's many factories. or Cordova ancient Corduba City (pop., 2001: 308,072), capital of Córdoba province, southern Spain. On the banks of the Guadalquivir River, it probably had Carthaginian origins. Occupied by the Romans in 152 BC, it became, under Augustus, the capital of the Roman province of Baetica. It declined under the Visigoths (6th-8th centuries AD), and it was captured by the Muslims in 711. Abd al-Rahman I, of the Umayyad family, made it his capital in 756 and founded the Great Mosque of Córdoba, which still stands. By the 10th century it was the largest city in Europe, filled with palaces and mosques. It fell to the Castilian king Ferdinand III in 1236 and became part of Christian Spain. Modern Córdoba's streets and buildings evoke its Moorish heritage