Famatina is a town in the province

Provinces of Argentina

Argentina is subdivided into twenty-three provinces and one autonomous city...

 of La Rioja

La Rioja Province (Argentina)

La Rioja is a one of the provinces of Argentina and is located in the west of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Catamarca, Córdoba, San Luis and San Juan.-History:...

, Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

. It has 6,371 inhabitants as per the , and is the only municipality in the Famatina Department. Located in fertile valley between Sierra de Famatina

Sierra de Famatina

thumb|200px|Coat of arms of La Rioja featuring Cerro General BelgranoSierra de Famatina is mountain range and massif in the Andes of the Argentine province of La Rioja. The range rises between the north-south valleys of Bermejo and Antinaco-Los Colorados. The highest point, called Nevado de...

 and Sierra de Velasco

Sierra de Velasco

right|250px|thumb|The western part of Sierra de Velasco captures during summer moist air from the Atlantic allowing some sub-tropical forests to grow on it....

 Famatina's economy revolve around jojoba

Jojoba

Jojoba, pronounced , is a shrub native to the Sonoran and Mojave deserts of Arizona, California, and Mexico. It is the sole species of the family Simmondsiaceae, placed in the order Caryophyllales. It is also known as goat nut, deer nut, pignut, wild hazel, quinine nut, coffeeberry, and gray box...

 and olive

Olive

The olive , Olea europaea), is a species of a small tree in the family Oleaceae, native to the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean Basin as well as northern Iran at the south end of the Caspian Sea.Its fruit, also called the olive, is of major agricultural importance in the...

 agriculture and tourism.

The town developed from a pre-Hispanic settlement in the Inca Empire

Inca Empire

The Inca Empire, or Inka Empire , was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th century...

, and whose indigenous inhabitants have been recognised as Diaguita

Diaguita

The Diaguita, also called Diaguita-Calchaquí, are a group of South American indigenous peoples. The Diaguita culture developed between the 8th and 16th centuries in what are now the provinces of Salta, Catamarca, La Rioja and Tucumán in northwestern Argentina, and in the Atacama and Coquimbo...

s. The site of Famatina was first explored by Spaniards in 1592 when Juan Ramírez de Velazco arrived during his search for gold.