Curicó Province () is one of four provinces of the central Chilean region of Maule (VII). Its capital is the city of Curicó. It lies between the provinces of Colchagua and Talca and extends from the Pacific to the Argentine frontier, spanning an area of . According to the 2002 census, the population was 244,053. Administration As a province, Curicó is a second-level administrative division of Chile, governed by a provincial delegate who is appointed by the president. Communes The province is composed of nine communes, each governed by a municipality consisting of an alcalde and municipal council. Curicó Hualañé Licantén Molina Rauco Romeral Sagrada Familia Teno Vichuquén History The region is named for the Curis, one of the tribes of Picunche or Promaucaes settled along the rivers of the central valley flowing into the Mataquito River, around the modern city of Curicó. Others tribes were the Tenu along the Teno River (the modern Rauco and Teno communes) to the north. To the south were the Gualemo along the Lontué River the modern Molina commune. Along the Mataquito were the tribes centered on the modern towns of Palquibudi in Sagrada Familia commune, La Huerta in Hualañé commune and Lora in Licantén commune. On the coast north of the river, the Vichuquén in the commune of the same name. The province was created in 1865. Formerly it was part of the Colchagua Province. In 1974, because of a regionalisation process in Chile during the Augusto Pinochet regime executed by CONARA (Comisión Nacional de Reforma Administrativa in Spanish, National Commission of Administrative Reform in English), the province was reshaped, taking place in the recently created Maule Region. Geography and ecology The eastern and western sections of Curicó Province are mountainous, and are separated by the fertile valley of central Chile. The provincial capital is Curicó, on the Mataquito River, 194 km south of Santiago. In some of the mountainous areas of the province is found the endangered Chilean Wine Palm, Jubaea chilensis, whose southern range is generally defined by the northern Maule Region, e.g. Curicó Province; historically, this endemic Chilean palm had a much wider distribution. Demography According to the 2002 census by the National Statistics Institute (INE), the province spans an area of and had a population of 244,053 inhabitants (122,835 men and 121,218 women), giving it a population density of . Between the 1992 and 2002 censuses, the population grew