For the saline lake in Córdoba Province, see Mar Chiquita, Córdoba

Mar Chiquita is a lagoon

Lagoon

A lagoon is a body of shallow sea water or brackish water separated from the sea by some form of barrier. The EU's habitat directive defines lagoons as "expanses of shallow coastal salt water, of varying salinity or water volume, wholly or partially separated from the sea by sand banks or shingle,...

 in the southeast province of Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

 in eastern 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 is located by the Atlantic coast, 30 km north of Mar del Plata

Mar del Plata

Mar del Plata is an Argentine city located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, south of Buenos Aires. Mar del Plata is the second largest city of Buenos Aires Province. The name "Mar del Plata" had apparently the sense of "sea of the Río de la Plata region" or "adjoining sea to the Río de la Plata"...

.

The area is a natural reserve where a number of species of animals live around the lagoon.

The location was also used as a suborbital launch site

CELPA (Mar Chiquita)

CELPA also known as CELPA Atlántico was a rocket launch site in Argentina, north of Mar del Plata. The launch site was in service from 1968 to 1976 and was mainly used for launching rockets of the types Orion II, Arcas, Rocketsonde and Dragon I...

 at coordinates 37°45' South, 57°25' West between 1968 and 1972; eight sounding rocket

Sounding rocket

A sounding rocket, sometimes called a research rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments during its sub-orbital flight. The origin of the term comes from nautical vocabulary, where to sound is to throw a weighted line from a ship into...

s of the types Arcas, two rockets of the type Orion-1, and a rocket of the type Dragon, were launched from there.
On the southern side of the lagoon there is a small resort village.

External links

• Mar Chiquita launch site
• Municipal INformation (in Spanish)
• Mar Chiquita Partido official site (in Spanish)