Zapala

Zapala is a city in the Patagonian province of Neuquén, Argentina with about 32,000 inhabitants according to the 2001 census [INDEC]. The city is located at the geographic center of the province at the confluence of national and provincial roads, on a route to the Andes and Chile. The city has an important cement factory.

Zapala was founded on 12 July 1913 around a railway station built by the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway, a British-owned company taken over by the Ferrocarril General Roca after railway nationalisation in 1948 and, since railway privatisation in 1993, in the hands of Ferrosur Roca. The city is split in two by the railways; on one side there is a commercial district with old buildings, and on the other a modern residential area.