Estancia

For the place in Brazil, see Estância, Sergipe. For town in New Mexico, see Estancia, New Mexico.
An estancia in Argentine Patagonia near the Andes.

An estancia or estância is a large, private plot of land used for farming or raising cattle or sheep. Estancias are located in the southern South American grasslands of Chilean and Argentine Patagonia, while the pampas, have historically been estates used to raise livestock, such as cattle or sheep. In Puerto Rico, an estancia was a farm growing frutos menores; that is, crops for local sale and consumption, the equivalent of a truck farm in the United States.[1] In Chile and Argentina, they are large rural complexes[2] with similarities to what in the United States is called a ranch.

  1. ^ Guillermo A. Baralt. Buena Vista: Life and Work on a Puerto Rican Hacienda. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. 1999. p. 150 (note 1).
  2. ^ Brown, Jonathan C. A Socioeconomic History of Argentina, 1776-1860,(Cambridge, England, 1979).