Luján

Luján, city and national pilgrimage site on the Luján River, in the Pampa of northern Buenos Aires provincia (province), eastern Argentina. The city was named for the conquistador Pedro Luján, who died there (1536) in a battle with Indians.

According to tradition, in 1630 a statue of the Virgin Mary was being transported by oxcart between churches and became stuck at what is now Luján, in spite of strenuous efforts to move it. That event was taken as a sign by devout Roman Catholics that the Virgin willed that she should stay there, giving reason for the establishment of a religious shrine and pilgrimage site. A commemorative chapel was built, and a settlement (declared a city in 1755) grew up around it. A neo-Gothic basilica encloses the original chapel and statue of the Virgin, whose feast day on May 21 attracts large numbers of pilgrims. Luján is also the site of the provincial Historical and Colonial Museum housed in the late 18th-century Cabildo (Town Hall). Pop. (2001) 93,992; (2010) 106,273.