Top 10 Volcanoes in Argentina
Argentina is volcanically modest only in comparison to Chile next door. Its own active and dormant volcanoes line the Cordillera de los Andes from the Puna in the north to Patagonia in the south, and they include the highest active volcano on Earth.
1. Ojos del Salado
Shared with Chile, this 6,893 m stratovolcano is the highest active volcano in the world and the second-highest peak in the Americas. Climbed each austral summer from base camps on either side of the border.
2. Aconcagua's neighbours: Mercedario and Tupungato
Tupungato, on the border with Chile, is a 6,565 m glacier-clad volcano — a serious mountaineering objective viewed by every traveller on Ruta 7 between Mendoza and Santiago.
3. Llullaillaco
A 6,739 m volcano in the Puna of Argentina-Chile, world-famous as the discovery site of three perfectly preserved Inca child mummies now exhibited in the MAAM museum in Salta.
4. Lanín
A near-perfect snow cone on the border with Chile in Neuquén province, in Lanín National Park. Sacred to the Mapuche, climbed in summer from a road that approaches the south face.
5. Copahue
A frequently active stratovolcano on the Chile–Argentina border with a crater lake of churning acidic water, geothermal valleys, and the Caviahue spa town on its slopes.
6. Domuyo
The highest point of Patagonia at 4,709 m, a dormant volcano above spectacular geothermal fields — geysers, hot springs, and natural saunas in the high steppe.
7. Tromen
A small Patagonian stratovolcano in the Auca Mahuida steppe, climbed for a windswept volcanic landscape that looks more Mongolian than Andean.
8. Maipo
A 5,323 m stratovolcano on the Mendoza-Chile border with a high crater lake (Laguna del Diamante) and a still-active history of explosive eruptions.
9. Antuco's neighbour: Caviahue–Copahue caldera
A wider caldera system around Copahue with hot springs, geysers, and hiking through fumaroles in winter snow.
10. Cerro Galán
A vast caldera in Catamarca province — one of the largest volcanic calderas in the world, 32 km across, formed by a colossal ignimbrite eruption two million years ago. Empty, dry, and astonishing.
How Argentina's volcanoes fit a trip
The Puna volcanoes (Llullaillaco, Galán) are visited from Salta and Catamarca on multi-day high-altitude trips. Mendoza is the base for Tupungato and Maipo. Patagonia offers Lanín, Tromen, Domuyo and Copahue in a long, lonely loop.
Hazard and access
SEGEMAR monitors Argentine volcanoes. Border-zone climbs require permits and increasingly licensed guides; Llullaillaco summits need archaeological permission as well. Altitude and remoteness, more than eruption, are the typical hazards.
See them on the map
Filter the map to Argentina and the volcanoes appear strung along the western border with Chile. The Puna, Mendoza and Neuquén-Patagonia clusters are the three regions to know.